|
"I HAVE written my heart in my Poems; and rude,
unfinished, and hasty as they are, it can be read there." Thus wrote
Robert Nicoll to a stranger whose literary talents he admired, and to whom
he had sent a copy of his poems, when that individual, appreciating the
gift, requested to learn something more of the giver.
There is certainly no collection of poems in the language
which more vividly reflects the character, tastes, and tendencies of the
writer at the age at which they were composed. And NICOLL'S
future life was so brief that there was not time for material change,
although he could ever have become any other man than the one indicated by
his youthful poetry; than the lover and worshipper of unadorned Nature,
the poet of the social and domestic affections, and, above all, the
apostle of the moral, and of what he considered no mean part of the
self-same thing, the political regeneration of society. But if his
heart may be read in his book, that book is also the substantial record of
his life; and an attempt to illustrate its contents from personal
knowledge, and by a few facts and gleanings from his scanty
correspondence, is all that is proposed in the present Sketch.
Nicoll's life was as simple and uneventful, as it was short,
bright, and unspotted. His future biographer will have few events to
relate, and no youthful follies or frailties to extenuate, or none that
his friends could perceive—and he never had a enemy. His moral and
intellectual qualities were in all respects happily balanced. He had
none of the oddities or eccentricities of self-taught men; and his
sterling good sense was at least commensurate with his genius, and with
his mental activity and energy. He was one of those youths of whom
the most prosaic might have safely predicted, that if life and health were
spared, he must, in spite of the dangerous gift of poetic genius, become a
prosperous, and, in any case, a good and a respected man; for he
possessed, in ample measure, those qualities which insure success in life
of the highest kind, and in the best way.
But youths and men like ROBERT NICOLL
do not, even in his favoured native land, spring out of the earth in a
genial, warm morning, like a crop of mushrooms. God had endowed him
with many precious gifts; but these might either have long lain dormant,
or have been for ever extinguished, save for the added blessings which
called them into early activity. The discipline of adversity was not
wanting; and among the happy influences that were around his childhood,
was having a mother worthy of such a son. To his mother, NICOLL,
in after-life, attributed whatever of distinction he had attained.
Thus, the theory, whether fanciful or not, that the mother is her
children's mental ancestor, receives another confirmation in the case of
the subject of this Sketch. There is, however, no fancy in saying
that his mother was his first and best instructor; his educator in the
highest and widest sense of the term.
ROBERT NICOLL was
born on the 7th January, 1814, in the farmhouse of Little Tulliebeltane,
in the parish of Auchtergaven, in Perthshire, which lies nearly half-way
between Perth and Dunkeld. His father, Mr. Robert Nicoll, was at
that period a farmer, in comfortable circumstances for his station and
locality; his mother was Grace Fenwick, one of the daughters of that
venerable Seceder, "Elder John," of whom NICOLL
speaks so frequently and affectionately in his poems. ROBERT
was the second son, in a family of nine children. His elder brother
died in childhood, and ROBERT thus became the
"eldest son." Both the families from which he immediately sprang had
been settled for generations in the same neighbourhood, and counted a long
pedigree of the kind that is still the proudest boast of rural
Scotland—decent, honest God-fearing people. By the recollection of
his mother, ROBERT, when nine months old, could
speak as infants speak; at eighteen months, he knew his letters; and
when five years old he could read the New Testament. His mother had
up to this time had leisure to be the teacher of her intelligent and
lively child: but now woeful reverse was impending over the family.
Mr. Nicoll had become security, to the amount of five or six hundred
pounds, for a connection by marriage, who failed and absconded; and the
utter ruin of his own family was the almost immediate consequence.
He gave up his entire property to satisfy the creditors of this individual; he lost even the lease of his farm, and, with his wife and several young
children, left the farmhouse, and became a day-labourer on the fields he
had lately rented; with nothing to sustain his wife and himself save the
consciousness of unblemished and unblamed integrity. ROBERT
NICOLL was thus, from the date of his earliest
recollection, the son of a very poor man, the inmate of a very lowly home,
the eldest of a struggling family. Field-labour was the daily lot of
his father, and at certain seasons of the year, of his mother also, as far
as was compatible with the care of her young and increasing family; and
the children, as soon as they were considered fit for labour, were, one by
one, set to work. Yet that goodness and mercy which temper the
severest lot of the virtuous poor were around them; and at the lowest ebb
of their fortunes, many of the best blessings of life must have mingled
with, and sweetened, their toils and hardships. That could not have
been other than a cheerful as well as a happy home and hearth, from which
sprang the germs of NICOLL'S poetry—his songs, his
descriptions of rustic manners, and his humorous portraits of rustic
contemporaries.
But it is wished, as far as possible, that NICOLL
should here tell his own story. In 1834, and when ROBERT
had just completed his twentieth year, Mr. Johnstone of Edinburgh, who had
received many communications from him, was induced to make some inquiry
about an obscure youth in Perth, not yet quite perfect in his orthography,
but who wrote very promising verses, and what was much more remarkable,
vigorous radical prose, breathing a high moral tone. In reply to Mr.
Johnstone's inquiry, young NICOLL sent him a sketch
of his history. Having told of his father's misfortunes, he says:—"He was ruined 'out of house and hold.' From that day to this, he
has gained his own and his children's bread by the sweat of his brow.
I was then too young to know the full extent of our misfortunes; but
young as I was, I saw and felt a great change. My mother, in her
early years, was an ardent book-woman. When she became poor, her
time was too precious to admit of its being spent in reading, and I
generally read to her while she was working; for she took care that her
children should not want education. Ever since I can remember, I was
a keen and earnest reader. Before I was six years of age, I read
every book that came in my way, and had gone twice through my
grandfather's small collection, though I had never been at school.
"When I had attained my sixth year, I was sent to the parish
school, which was three miles distant, and I generally read going and
returning. To this day, I can walk as quickly as my neighbours, and
read at the same time with the greatest ease. I was sent to the
herding at seven years of age, and continued herding all summer, and
attending school all winter with my ‘fee.’"
In a few notes written by NICOLL'S
younger brother, Mr. William Nicoll, in adverting to ROBERT'S
childhood, it is said:—"Even at this early period, ROBERT
was a voracious reader, and never went to the herding without a book in
his plaid; and he generally read both going and returning from school.
From his studious disposition, though a favourite with the other boys from
his sweetness of temper, he hardly ever went by any other name than The
Minister. When about twelve, he was taken from herding,
and sent to work in the garden of a neighbouring proprietor. With
the difference, that he had now less time for reading than before, the
change in his employment made very little change in his habits. He
went to school during the winter as usual."
In one of these winters he began the Latin Rudiments; and,
besides writing and accounts, he seems to have acquired some knowledge of
geometry. We should, however, say, that NICOLL
knew little of any science, and nothing of any language, save English, and
his own beautiful Doric. He never made any pretensions of the sort.
His slight acquaintance with the Latin Rudiments must, however, have been
of use to him when he subsequently taught himself grammar from Cobbett's
useful Compendium. But his regular school-learning, whatever its
amount, was all acquired at intervals, and in the dull season of the year,
when he could not work out of doors.
His brother mentions, that when ROBERT
was about fourteen, he attended a young student named Marshall—a person of
great talent and promise—who opened a school in the neighbouring village,
and who died in a year or two afterwards, much regretted. Their
connection was more like that of friends than of master and scholar; and
comparing his own slender attainments with those of Marshall, ROBERT
learnt the important secret of his own deficiencies, and was stimulated to
more strenuous efforts. After Mr. Marshall had removed to another part of
the country, Robert attended, for a short time, at schools taught by two
other young men; and this, with six weeks at the parish school of Monedie,
comprised the whole of his school-education; which, casual and slight as
it may seem, gave him the elements of knowledge, and the invaluable power
of self-improvement—all that, to a mind like his, was essential.
Before this time, and when he was between eleven and twelve, a book-club
had been established in the village of the parish; and in his letter to
Mr. Johnstone, he says, "When I had saved a sufficient quantity of silver
coin, I became a member. I had previously devoured all the books to
be got for love, and I soon devoured all those in the library for money.
Besides, by that time I began to get larger 'fees,' and I was able to pay
1s. 6d, a month, for a month or two, to a bookseller in Perth, for
reading. From him I got many new works; and among the rest the
Waverley Novels. With them I was enchanted. They opened up new
sources of interest and thought, of which I before knew nothing. I
can yet look with no common feelings on the wood, in which, while herding,
I read Kenilworth."
Was that beautiful fiction, which, next to the Bride of
Lammermoor, is the deepest tragedy that Scott has penned, ever more truly
appreciated in the stately saloons and splendid drawing-rooms of grandeur
and nobility, than by that poor, little herd-boy? Has it ever, in
such places, given equal pleasure? Greater it could not give.
When about thirteen, NICOLL began to
scribble his thoughts, and to make rhymes; and his brother relates, that
he was so far honoured as, at this age, to become the correspondent of a
provincial newspaper, the manager of which, in requital of small scraps of
parish news, sent him an occasional number of the journal. We cannot
tell how ROBERT obtained this distinguished post;
but the editor afterwards found a correspondent more suitable, at least in
point of age, and ROBERT was deprived of his office.
His brother states, that he was somewhat chagrined at the abrupt
disruption of this, his first connection with the press.
It was probably in consequence of his acquaintance with Mr.
Marshall, that the change thus described in his letter to Mr. Johnstone
took place.
"As nearly as I can remember, I began to write my thoughts when I was
thirteen years of age, and continued to do so at intervals until I was
sixteen, when, despairing of ever being able to write the English language
correctly, I made a bonfire of my papers, and wrote no more till I was
eighteen.
“My excursive course of reading, among both poetry and
prosers, gave me many pleasures of which my fellows knew nothing; but it
likewise made me more sensitive to the insults and degradations that a
dependent must suffer. You cannot know the horrors of dependence;
but I have felt them, and have registered a vow in heaven, that I shall be
independent, though it be but on a crust and water.
“To further my progress in life, I bound myself apprentice to
Mrs. J. H. Robertson, wine-merchant and grocer in Perth. When I came
to Perth, I bought Cobbett's English Grammar, and by constant study soon
made myself master of it, and then commenced writing as before; and you
know the result.
"When I first came to Perth, a gentleman lent me his right to
the Perth Library, and thus I procured many works I could not get before;
Milton's Prose Works, Locke's Works, and, what I prized more than all, a
few of Bentham's, with many other works in various departments of
literature and science, which I had not had the good fortune to read
before.
"I was twenty years of age in the month of January last; and
my apprenticeship expires in September next. By that time, I hope,
by close study, to have made myself a good French scholar; and I intend,
if I can raise the monies, to emigrate to the United States of North
America.
"I do not rate my literary productions too highly; but they
have all a definite purpose—that of trying to raise the many. I am a
Radical in every sense of the term, and I must stand by my order. I
am employed in working for my mistress from seven o'clock in the morning
until nine o'clock at night; and I must therefore write when others are
asleep. During winter, to sit without a fire is a hard task: but
summer is now coming—and then!
"It may, perhaps, appear ridiculous to fill a letter with
babblings of one's self; but when a person who has never known any one
interest themselves in him, who has existed as a cipher in society, is
kindly asked to tell his own story, how he will gossip! . . . . . . . To
Mrs. Johnstone and yourself, what can I say in return for your kindness?
Nothing; but if ever I can return you good for good, I will do it."
Such was the first letter that NICOLL had probably
ever written to any one save his brother, then a school-boy, or his
mother. When he says, "I bound myself apprentice," he relates the
simple fact; though a step of this important kind is usually taken by
parents in behalf of their children. But by this time he had been
for nine or ten years earning "fees," the gentle name for wages in the
rural parts of Scotland; and probably he was also in the habit of looking
out for employment for himself. The intelligent children of the poor
early acquire habits of self-reliance and independence, of which those in
different circumstances can have no idea. Nay, besides acting for
himself, ROBERT, as his mind expanded in the wider
field of observation and actual business which Perth afforded him, acted
in some respects for the whole family, some of whom, as they became fit
for business, subsequently followed him into Perth, in capacities nearly
similar to his own. By a simple, and yet energetic and thoughtful
deed for a lad of his years, he laid the foundation of a fortunate change
in the circumstances of his family. He perceived how miserably small
were the gains of his parents from mere outdoor labour; and, with two
pounds which he had carefully saved up, he induced his mother to commence
a little shop in her cottage at Tulliebeltane, and to become a regular
attendant at the weekly market of Perth, where she could dispose of those
rural commodities which she might purchase or procure in exchange for her
groceries and other small wares. This proved a great resource in
enabling this excellent person to bring up and educate her younger
children; all of whom have received a better, or a more systematic
education than did ROBERT, and this without abating
in the least their early habits of industry. ROBERT'S
education, it will be seen, might, from an early period, very safely have
been left to himself.
NICOLL'S letters from Perth to his
brother William afford a few passing glimpses of his probationary years,
and of his habits of thought, and his aspirations, while bright visions
were rising before his youthful fancy, from out the clearing mists of
futurity. When he had been about a year at his apprenticeship, he
thus gives William sage counsel as to the best method of pursuing his
studies, and reports upon his own progress:—
"I received your
learned and —[a misspelt French word] epistle; and I must confess
I was agreeably surprised by its contents; inasmuch as you have this week
discovered that nothing can be accomplished without labour. For, in
your former letter, you seemed to think you could work Bonnycastle as you
would a cart-horse. But why despair, my pretty fellow?
Commence with Practical Surveying, and read on to the end, and think
attentively as you read, and I will bet you two to one, that in a month
you will have it all in your head like a horn."
After some good advice about systematizing his studies, the student is
recommended not to exalt memory above the reasoning faculty; and thus
exhorted:—
"But do you
think and engrave the principle on the tables of your heart, from
which nothing can ever again efface it! That is the manner of
proceeding I have taken, and I every day feel the good effects of it; and
if life and strength be spared me, there is something that whispers that I
may yet, at some future period, distinguish myself, either by prose or
verse, in the republic of letters.
"Perhaps you won't believe me, but I declare to you that I am
grown very industrious. After this fashion, I read a good deal in
the morning while sluggards are snoring; all day I attend to my business; and in the fore-nights [the early part of the evening] I learn my
grammar; while the morning of Sunday is spent in writing hymns, or other
harmless poetical pieces. Would you have thought it—I, even
I, am reckoned in Perth, a very early riser. Tell it not in
the Coates—proclaim it not in the gates of Tulliebeltane! I hope
you will pardon the inaccuracies of this letter, as I have never given it
a second reading. By the by, I will send you one of my darling MS.
poems one of these days. Now don't laugh."
The reader need not be reminded that these extracts are from the hasty and
unrestrained communications of one country boy to another still younger
than himself, and his brother. But as genuine bits of a young mind
of no common order, they are precious.
The Reform agitation—an era in the history of mind of Great
Britain, the effects of which yet remain to be developed—was now at its
height; and NICOLL, prepared by his previous
studies and ruminations, though they had not been directly political, in
May, 1832, writes to his brother, first speaking in the usual way of the
difficulty of writing a letter when one has nothing to say, till he
recollects, like a philosopher of eighteen, "that no one who looks upon
his brethren of mankind, and the beauties of the earth, with an inquiring
eye, can ever be at a loss for a subject,"—and launches forth:—
"To look upon
mankind—to observe the various airs they give themselves, is indeed
calculated to make a person a misanthrope. The chief of an Indian
tribe daily goes to his tent-door and points out to the sun the path he is
to travel for the day; and the despots of Europe wish to point out to
mankind the road till time shall be no longer. The head prince of a
village, or the lord of a few acres, equally with those, rule, in mind as
well as in body, the crouching wretches who labour unseen; and all
combine to keep themselves uppermost, at the expense of their
fellow-creatures, unheeding though misery may follow their path—that is
nothing compared to self-aggrandisement. And those who submit to be
thus tyrannized over, what are they? we are tempted to ask. Are they men
who listen to every word as if it proceeded from God—who obey every motion
as if it were one from the Deity? They are not men—they are slaves,
in every sense of the word; because they have made themselves so when God
created them freemen."
Having followed this theme at greater length, and concluded with a
well-known quotation from Campbell—
|
"Fierce in his eye the fire of valour burns,
And as the slave departs the man returns,"— |
the young
Radical philosopher turns to another and cognate topic.
"To see the power
of riches—to see how their possessor is adored, is followed and caressed;
to see him indulge in every vice, in every folly, and followed and
caressed still; and to see the same man—still the same—stripped by
fortune of the riches he bestowed upon his vices, where, then, are
the crowds who follow in his train? where are those who followed him and
applauded his very blasphemies. Why, they are gone to follow others
like in manners; and to laugh at him when, they have ruined for this
world and the next. To look on such a picture is enough to make men
curse the name of men who turn GOD'S moral world into a wilderness, his
image into a devil, and his word into a cloak for their practices!
But no, we will not curse; we look on men as brothers, and leave them to
their God."
In the spring
of 1832, and when ROBERT was consequently eighteen, he writes his brother
thus:—
“In your last
letter you seem to think that I have given up all thoughts of America;
but I must tell you such is not the case. My mother used to say I
was very fickle; but if I were not still in the thoughts of going there, I
would deserve the name of fickleness indeed."
Having dwelt on the advantages of America over his own country,
"Scotland," as he says, "though it be," for a man who has nothing to
depend on but his industry and talents, he concludes—
"If a person is clever and behaves himself, he is as sure of a competence
as I am sure of being a poet; and that is sure enough, in all conscience! . . . . . You may laugh in your sleeve at my poetry; but
'wait a wee,'
and mayhap you may laugh on the wrong side of your mouth, as Cobbett says
of his political enemies.——Poetry is one of the greatest earthly blessings
that God bestows upon man. Poets are generally poor men; but none of them
would give up their fancy, imagination, or whatever it is that forms a
poet, for all the riches of Golconda's mines. You have heard of
Coleridge. He is a scholar than whom there are few better; but, by
devoting his time to the muses, he has never yet been, as I may say,
independent. Yet this unfortunate son of genius says—'Poetry has
soothed my afflictions, heightened my joys, and thrown a broad and
beautiful halo over the best and worst scenes of my life.'
"But you must not suppose, for all that, that I will not work
while I write; for, as Thomas Moore says in the midst of a sentimental
love song, 'We must all dine,' so say I; and though Moore has often been
laughed at for the ridiculous expression, I am almost tempted to think it
the most sensible thing he has ever written.
"I get on trippingly with my grammar; and always as I
proceed I feel myself understanding it better; and I hope I may yet be a
good grammarian. If once learned and practised, I will not be afraid, if
health be spared me, to fight my way through the world. . . . . By the
way, I think it would be the best policy for you to write a [little]
better, and a little closer.[1] As to America, my plan
is this:—I will try and get a good engagement for a year or two, and
then, when I have got as much cash as will carry me, go to it; and when I
can get myself comfortably settled, you and the rest may come out also
without fear, as you would have a home awaiting you. But this is always
supposing we get no encouragement at home. Now for poetry."
A stanza on
Sabbath Morning fills up the sheet; and, after it is folded, the
blank corners are garnished with such scraps as the following:—
|
The tenant to his landlord hied,
And told his tale of poverty:—
"I pardon you," the landlord cried,
"Your clothes are rent enough, I see." |
Four years later—four years to NICOLL of intense
mental activity—we find him writing from Dundee, to a young literary
friend, and, after lamenting the venality of the newspaper press, saying,
"I have lately been reading the Recollections of Coleridge. What a
mighty intellect was lost in that man for a want of a little energy—a
little determination! He was ruined, as thousands have been, by the
accursed aristocracy. I almost cried when I found him saying, that
instead of completing, or rather beginning his projected great work, he
was obliged to write twaddle for * *, and compose MS. sermons, to support
his station in society! Good God! that a man with an intellect so noble
should have been a slave to conventionalities. Had he dared to be
poor—had he known that bread and cheese and water could nourish the body
as well as the choicest viands—that coarse woollens could cover it as well
as the finest silks—and had he dared to act on that knowledge, how little
of his time would it have taken to have sufficed his wants, and how much
leisure would he have had for giving shape and utterance to his immortal
thoughts! He could not say with Jean Paul, 'What matters, if God's
heaven be within a man's head, whether its outside covering be a silken
cowl or a greasy nightcap?' And through fear of losing caste in the
world—this speck and point of time merely—he consented to forego his
'station' in the world of mind. O for an hour of John Milton, to
teach such men to 'act and comprehend.'"
This, to many, may sound like rhodomontade, and it certainly argues
slender experience of real life. Undoubtedly, however, human happiness
would be much the gainer, if the simplicity and self-denial insisted on,
were more practised than it is; and this much may be said for the young
enthusiast—he was living according to his own doctrines, and literally on
bread and cheese and water, "that he might have leisure to give shape and
utterance to ' his thoughts."
It was NICOLL'S habit during the
summer, to rise before five o'clock, and repair to the North Inch of
Perth, where he wrote in the open air until seven o'clock, when it was
time to attend to business. Again, when at nine o'clock in the
evening his daily labour was over, his studies were resumed, and were
often carried far into the morning. Such rigorous application in a
growing lad, but recently transferred to a town from the brae-side—where
he had lived all his days in the open air like a bird—and to constant
confinement in a shop, could not be without ill effects on his health;
though we have heard his mother impute the origin of the malady, which
ultimately cut him off, to some internal injury, or strain of the chest,
which he received from thoughtlessly lifting a too heavy load.
About this time, NICOLL became a member of a
debating society of young men, the object of which appears to have been
partly political and partly literary. Of this society his brother
says,
"ROBERT'S manner,
that of a raw country boy, was against him; but his indomitable energy
and perseverance soon overcame every difficulty, and in a very short space
of time he was able to speak with great fluency. The habit of
extemporary speaking which he acquired in the Young Men's Debating Society
of Perth, gave him that confidence in himself which enabled hint, in a
year or two afterwards [in Dundee], successfully to address larger
assemblies of more critical listeners. To improve himself in
composition, besides his ordinary exercises, he was in the habit of
writing short stories, of which he had always a few lying by him.
One of them, 'Il Zingaro,' he sent to Johnstone's Magazine."
But the history of that most momentous event in the life of a young
author—the first-published article, may come with far more grace from his
own pen than from that of any other individual. In what a happy flutter of
spirits must the subjoined letter have been written.
"DEAR WILLIAM,—I
have great news to tell you! About the beginning of last month I
wrote a tale for one of my exercises in composition, and as I had bestowed
some pains upon it, I was loath to lose it. Accordingly, I sent it,
addressed to Mr. Johnstone, for insertion in Johnstone's Magazine;
and, to my surprise, it has been inserted in last number. You will
find it in page 106. It is a Radical story; for I wish to tell
truth in the guise of fiction. . . . .I have told no person of it but Mr.
— —, and, on Wednesday, my aunties M— — and C— —, who observed—'Dinna
be an author; they are aye puir.' In this world's goods they may
be, but they have better riches than these. At least, my works will
not hinder my riches; for I sit down to write when others go to sleep, or
to amuse themselves; and I find myself fitter to do my work after half a
night's writing than others after half a night's idiotical amusement, or
worse, debauchery. You must forgive my bad writing, for the sake of
a bad pen."
This must have been great news for all in Tulliebeltane. But we do
not learn with what mixture of fear and hope, of pride and distrust, it
was received in his mother's cottage, notwithstanding the prophetic
warning of his prudent aunts. One year, nay, half a year later, ROBERT
would probably have chosen more congenial confidants.
The Radical story, which found such honourable and
unlooked for acceptance, occupies about one page and a half of the
Magazine. It is not only characteristic of NICOLL'S
mind at that fervent period, but at all after times. It is the tale
of a gipsy youth, of fine and aspiring genius, who, smitten with love for
a beautiful girl, becomes a water-carrier in an Italian city, and who, by
resolutely enduring every kind of privation, and exerting wonderful
energy, is enabled to become the pupil of an eminent painter, and finally
acquires great eminence in his art, and obtains the hand of the object of
his love and his exertions.
The tale has some foundation either in fact or in popular
tradition. It commences in the vein of much of NICOLL'S
future writings.
"From among the PEOPLE the
greatest men of every age have arisen. Those rich in worldly goods
rarely find time for aught but luxurious enjoyments; while, among the
poor, there are always a few who sanctify the hours saved from toil by
striving to attain intellectual excellence. From among those few
sometimes arise master-spirits, who give a tone, not only to the age in
which they live, and to their own land, but to future generations, and to
the whole world. The peculiar greatness of mental power is, that it
does not blaze up in a corner, and then become extinct, but enlightens and
delights all nations. . . .Who can estimate the influence which the life
and writings of Robert Burns have exerted on our national character?
Who can estimate the good effects which the writings of Sir Walter
Scott—so filled with human sympathies and wise examples—may yet exert on
the destinies of mankind? We know no more heart-elating enjoyment
than to peruse Benjamin Franklin's narrative of his own life: in which he
tells of his rise from a runaway printer's boy to be the first philosopher
of the day; and one of the founders of an empire the freest and happiest
the world ever saw. Is the influence of all the kings that ever
reigned to be for a moment compared with the silent mental power possessed
by Franklin? . . . .But in our day it is comparatively an easy matter for
the so-called lower classes to educate themselves. The gates
of knowledge—of mental power—stand ever open."
Such is the preamble to "Il Zingaro," and the first indication of the
future Radical poet and newspaper editor. NICOLL
was now nineteen; and his letters and manuscript compositions show, that
in the previous year he had made rapid advancement, both in the power of
thinking, and in the art of expressing his thoughts, and even in the
lesser matters of orthography and grammatical accuracy.
Either from the effect of the internal crush which he had
received, or from over-application, perhaps from both causes, ROBERT'S
health became so much deranged towards the close of his apprenticeship,
that it was abruptly terminated by his kind and indulgent mistress sending
him home to be nursed by his mother. At leisure, breathing his
native air, and wandering among the "Ordè Braes," he recovered rapidly;
and in the month of September, of the same year, he, for the first time,
visited Edinburgh, in quest of employment. This visit was made at a
rather memorable period—the time of the "Grey Dinner." After giving
the history of his private adventure in a letter to his father and mother,
he thus continues the narrative of his visit:—
"Edinburgh was a sight worth seeing on Monday last. The streets,
from Newington, along the South and North Bridges, and Princes Street,
were crowded, or rather wedged. The whole side of the Calton Hill
was paved with people. There must have been 40,000 on the line of
Earl Grey's march. I saw him at the Waterloo Hotel. He is a
fresh-looking, bald-headed man, with a most determined curled lip.
He is not old-looking. I thought the crowd would have shaken his
hand off. He is a most beautiful speaker. Lord Brougham I saw at the
college, and he looks far younger than I thought him. . . . .Lord Durham
is a handsome man—dark-coloured, and clever-looking. . . . .
"I paid sixpence to see the place that they had the dinner in
the Grey Pavilion; and truly it was more like one of the enchanted
halls in the Arabian Nights than anything else.
"If I get a situation, I shall write you; but if not, I
shall be home on Saturday. Had I been a cloth-merchant, I might have
got a dozen of situations.
"I have visited Mr. Johnstone, who has been remarkably kind.
I was at my tea with him on Saturday. I saw his steam-press going,
printing Tait's Magazine. It is a strange machine. A
sheet of paper, of the proper size, is put in, and comes out at the other
end, and printed on both sides."
Two years afterwards, and NICOLL was himself keeping
one of those "strange machines" in full play, and stirring thousands with
its productions.
At this time he was, on his own earnest request, introduced
to Mr. Robert Chambers and Mr. George Gilfillan; for everyone who wrote,
and, above all, who wrote verses, was then a Magnate in his eyes. By
every one that he met he appears to have felt himself treated with
kindness and liberality.
He returned home—it will scarcely be too much to say—not
greatly disappointed in not finding employment. His heart was
already placed on a vocation very different from that to which he had been
bred; or he might speedily have found what he did not in fact very
anxiously seek. The pursuits of literature—to be connected in some
way with books and the press, were it but to breathe in the atmosphere of
knowledge, was his secret and ardent desire. His friends in
Edinburgh were, on the other hand, more desirous to repress than to foster
his literary ardour; and anxious that he should stick to his trade, and,
without abandoning either politics or the Muses, keep them for the present
in the background. But this was not to be. His future vocation
was speedily determined; and all was for the best.
He had, in fact, been offered a situation of the kind to
which he had been bred, when, with very slender means—the help of his
mother, and some friendly aid and encouragement from friends in Perth—he
was induced to open a Circulating Library in Dundee. A shop was
taken in that town, and on this new plan of life NICOLL
entered with all the ardour and energy belonging to his character.
By means of his Library, he soon acquired an extensive acquaintance among
the young mechanics and manufacturers of the place; and this year, 1835,
became an important epoch in. his life. He wrote largely and
frequently for the liberal newspapers of the town; he delivered political
lectures; he made speeches; augmented his stores of knowledge by reading; he wrote poems; and, finally, he prepared and published his volume of
Poems and Lyrics. NICOLL
was of the order of young men of genius who more require the rein than the
spur; and his sage Edinburgh friends certainly gave no more encouragement
to his appearance as an author—which was deemed premature, and
consequently injurious to what they imagined his real powers, when time
had been allowed for their fair development—than they had done to his
change of profession. But a good many persons in his own rank of
life, chiefly clever young working men, had subscribed for the projected
work. It was forthwith put to press in one of the newspaper offices
of Dundee; and when ROBERT, on coming to Edinburgh
to find a publisher, got a note of introduction from a friend to Mr. Tait,
and found that gentleman (although booksellers are not generally, in these
times, fond of poetical literature) willing to be his publisher, he
returned home in high spirits. His volume shortly afterwards
appeared, and was received with great kindness by his friends, and with
that warm approbation by the press which the author modestly considered
far above its merits.
We have the authority of his brother for saying, that "while
ROBERT acknowledged that his poems were the means of
placing him in a situation to attempt something better, he regretted that
he had published so soon." And, in point of fact, though he wrote
verses while he was able to hold a pencil, he published no more, with the
exception of one or two pieces at most, which, while he was Editor of the
Leeds Times, appeared in Tait's Magazine, through the
intervention of the friend to whom they were sent.
When ROBERT had been some time in
Dundee, his original want of anything deserving to be called capital, and
his literary studies and engagements (which, if quite unproductive, yet
occupied considerable time), induced him to receive, as a partner, a young
tradesman who had a little money; while he himself attempted a small
periodical work, which did not succeed. The library business, hardly
able to support one, could ill support two; and, at Whitsunday, 1836, NICOLL
made it entirely over to his partner, retiring from the concern without
any gain, and without any obligation; he had, indeed, lost by it.
This concern must have occasioned great anxiety to his mother, who had,
however, made those efforts which only a mother can make to assist and
support him in it.
In entering upon the concern, he had come under, and also
involved his mother in, pecuniary engagements, trifling in amount indeed,
but which were to him and her as harassing and depressing as hundreds or
thousands might have been in different circumstances. He had also,
shortly after coming to Dundee, formed an ardent attachment to a very
pretty and amiable girl, who eventually became his wife. He had thus
every motive for endeavouring to establish himself as soon as possible in
some suitable and permanent occupation. This young person, NICOLL'S
first and only love, was Miss Alice Suter, the only child of a widow, and
the niece of the editor of one of the newspapers to which NICOLL
contributed. She naturally shared his anxiety about their future
prospects, and stimulated him to look for employment elsewhere. But
the strong-hearted mother was still, as ever, his support in trial, and
the confidant of all his hopes and fears.
When he had almost made up his mind to make over the business
to his partner, and quit Dundee for Edinburgh or London, in the hope of
finding employment connected with the newspaper press, we find him writing
to his mother; and the fact of such a letter as we have to cite, being
written by a young man in the circumstances of NICOLL,
is not half so remarkable, as that it was addressed to a woman in the
condition of his mother, with the undoubting confidence that she fully
comprehended and sympathized in every sentiment of his heart, and in every
aspiration of his mind. It is just as beautifully said by Mr. Laing
in his late work:—
"We often hear, What country but Scotland ever produced a Burns among her
peasantry? But the next question for the social economist is, What
country but Scotland ever produced a peasantry for whom a Burns could
write? Burns had a public of his own in his own station in life,
who could feel and appreciate his poetry long before he was known to the
upper class of Scotch people; and, in fact, he never was known or
appreciated by the upper class. . . . It is a peculiar feature in the
social condition of our lowest labouring class in Scotland, that none,
perhaps, in Europe, have so few physical, and so many intellectual wants
and gratifications. Luxury, or even comfort in diet or lodging, is
unknown. Oatmeal, milk, potatoes, kail, herrings, and rarely salt
meat, are the chief food; a wretched dark, damp, mud-floored hovel the
usual kind of dwelling; yet, with these wants and discomforts in their
physical condition, which is far below that of the same class abroad, we
never miss a book, perhaps a periodical, a sitting in the Kirk, a good
suit of clothes for Sunday wear. . . . .The labouring man's subscriptions
in Scotland to his book-club, his newspaper turn, his Bible Society, his
Missionary Society, his kirk, or minister if he be a Seceder, and his
neighbourly aid of the distressed, are expenditure upon intellectual and
moral gratifications of a higher cast than the music-scrapings, singing,
dancing, play-going, and novel-reading, of a much higher class of persons
in Germany."
The above passage affords the key to a Scotch matron, living under the
exact circumstances described by Mr. Laing, fully appreciating a letter
like the following, addressed to her by her son:—
"DUNDEE,
February 6, 1836.
"DEAR MOTHER,—I
have just received the box with the articles, and your letter. I
entirely forgot to send you a book; but you may be sure of one next time. I send this letter by D. C——, and would have sent a book likewise, but do
not like to trouble him. Enclosed you will find a number of letters,
which I thought you would like to see. Be sure to keep them clean,
and return them soon. I shall write you again before going to
Edinburgh; and you may depend I shall not give up my shop till I have
something certain to compensate for it.
"That money of R.'s [2] hangs like a
milestone about my neck. If I had it paid I would never borrow again
from mortal man. But do not mistake, me, mother; I am not one of
those men who faint and falter in the great battle of life. God has
given me too strong a heart for that. I look upon earth as a place where
every man is set to struggle, and to work, that he may be humble and
pure-hearted, and fit for that better land for which earth is a
preparation—to which earth is the gate. Cowardly is that man who bows
before the storm of life—who runs not the needful race manfully, and with
a cheerful heart. If men would but consider how little of real evil
there is in all the ills of which they are so much afraid—poverty
included—there would be more virtue and happiness, and less world and
mammon-worship on earth than is. I think, mother, that to me has
been given talent; and if so, that talent was given to make it useful to
man. To man it cannot be made a source of happiness unless it be
cultivated; and cultivated it cannot be unless I think little of [here
some words are obliterated], and much and well of purifying and
enlightening the soul. This is my philosophy; and its motto is—
|
DESPAIR, thy name is written
on
The roll of common men. |
Half the unhappiness of this life springs from looking back to griefs
which are past, and forward with fear to the future. That is not my
way. I am determined never to bend to the storm that is coming, and
never to look back on it after it has passed. Fear not for me, dear
mother; for I feel myself daily growing firmer, and more hopeful in
spirit. The more I think and reflect and thinking, instead of
reading, is now my occupation—I feel that, whether I be growing richer or
not, I am growing a wiser man, which is far better. Pain, poverty,
and all the other wild beasts of life which so affright others, I am so
bold as to think I could look in the face without shrinking, without
losing respect for myself, faith in man's high destinies, and trust in
God. There is a point which it costs much mental toil and struggling to
gain, but which, when once gained, a man can look down from, as a
traveller from a lofty mountain, on storms raging below, while he is
walking in sunshine. That I have yet gained this point in life I
will not say, but I feel myself daily nearer it. I would write long, but
have no more time, and must stop short in the middle of my letter.
We are in the shop much as usual. Hoping my father will get better
soon, I am, dear mother, your son,
"ROBERT NICOLL."
The only regular correspondent of NICOLL at this
time, was the young friend to whom he addressed the remarks on the fate of
Coleridge that have been cited above. There were many points of
resemblance in their position, and some in their character; and the
friendship struck up with the unknown admirer of his poetry, who was
himself a man of great and original powers of mind and fancy, overflowed
in epistles which, in spite of the old high rate of postage, proceeded
with this, a first literary correspondent, at the brisk pace which such a
friendship inspires at twenty-one. NICOLL'S
literary friends in Edinburgh rarely wrote to him, and never more than the
needful, when they entertained the hope of forwarding his views, or
of being of use to him in some way or other; but here were the warm
sympathies of youth, and a cordial outpouring of soul on both sides.
The correspondence is highly characteristic of both the individuals, who
continued cordial friends up to the death of NICOLL,
though they never chanced once to meet.
A few extracts from this correspondence will elucidate NICOLL'S
state of mind at this, and indeed at every future period of his short
life. His philosophy, if we may so apply the term—his high feeling
of his vocation—his "definite purpose" in all that he wrote, we conceive
more remarkable, and far more rare than even his attainments as a Scotch
poet. We have seen that, from his boyish years, it had been his
resolution
|
To scorn delights,
And live laborious days; |
and neither love, politics, nor the fascinations of society made him once
waver in the resolve. His correspondent had been desirous to know if
the young poet, whose verses he admired, was correct in his habits, and
steady in his character, before he gave him his full friendship; and he
made inquiry of a common friend, who informed, NICOLL
of the circumstance. Now, with great gleefulness and cheerfulness of
disposition, a keen perception of humour, and true relish of fun, there
was in ROBERT not only the most perfect purity of
mind and life, but, as has been said, a lack of frailties and
eccentricities somewhat detrimental to the personal interest usually taken
in the passionate sons of song, who are, perhaps, not the worse liked by
their wiser, prosaic patrons and friends for being at least a little odd
and wayward, if not irregular, in their manners and habits.
The inquiry as to his morals, gave him opportunity to reply
in this strain:—
"You are right in thinking that I would honour you for being anxious to
know whether I was 'steady' or not; and I am happier than I can well
express to find, that in you I have not only met with a man of undoubted
genius, but with a man who likewise knows what is due to that genius, who
knows how to respect himself, and disdains to sully the light which GOD
has kindled in his soul by the unholy and accursed fumes of vice and
immorality. I fervently hope that the time has for ever gone by when
genius was considered an excuse for evil—when the man who could appreciate
and express the beautiful and true, was supposed to be at liberty to scorn
all truth, and all beauty, mental and moral. Our influence on mankind may
be small, but it will ever be exerted to purify, and better, and
enlighten. The time has come—the day of human improvement is growing to
noon, and henceforth men, with free and disenthralled souls, will strive
to make them, in very truth, 'a temple where a God might dwell.' If the
men of mind would but join to intellectual power more single-mindedness
and purity of heart—if they would but strive to be morally as well as
intellectually great, there would be fewer complaints against man's
proneness to mammon-worship. The only legitimate power in sublunary
things, Mind, would, as it ought—aye, and as it will, if men be
true to themselves—have its due influence and honour. Literary men,
too, now begin to see the power and glory of their own mission; and this
is both an omen and an earnest of much good. O for a man like blind
old John Milton to lead the way in moral and intellectual improvement, to
moral and intellectual light and glory! . . . . .
"Of the butterflies who have degraded literature by their
evil ways, until it has become something almost to be scorned at, and who
have made one branch of it—namely, poetry—to be regarded not in the light
of a God-given gift for blessing and hallowing earth, and man, and nature,
but as something for the amusement of fools, and the eulogy of knaves—of
those creatures who lie below contempt, were their doings not so
mischievous, you need entertain no fear.". . . .
In tenderly ministering to, or endeavouring to brace, while he soothed the
morbid mind of this friend, for whom he had the warmest regard—and who
merited his regard, in spite of his capricious fits, whether of real or of
merely pen-and-ink despondency—NICOLL sometimes
recurred to his own early and real difficulties, and to his continued
manful struggle with poverty; if the man may properly be called poor,
whose clear income was probably not six shillings a week, but who could
live upon less. He owned that he also had at times felt crushed in
hope and spirit; but now, he says,—
"Time has made my heart firmer, adversity has knit me to endurance,
and prepared me to meet all fortunes, if not smilingly, at least
carelessly. You cannot feel thus; but I do. What makes the
difference? I will tell you, Charles. I am a younger man than
you, but my struggle began earlier. From seven years of to this
hour, I have been dependent only on my own head and hands for
everything—for very bread. Long years ago—aye, even in
childhood—adversity made me think, and feel, and suffer; and, would pride
allow me, I could tell the world many a deep, deep tragedy enacted in the
heart of a poor, forgotten, uncared-for boy. Have you ever known
those
|
Tortures alone the poor can know,
The proud alone can feel? |
I hope not; for callousness to the world and its ways is too dearly
bought by such suffering. I have known it—aye, to my heart's core;
and while the breath of life is in my body, I can never forget. But
I thank God that though I felt and suffered, the scathing blast neither
blunted my perceptions of natural and moral beauty, nor, by withering the
affections of my heart, made me a selfish man. Often when I look
back, I wonder how I bore the burden—how I did not end the evil day at
once and for ever. Pride saved me then; and it encourages me now.
Is it to be borne, that while the selfish, mean-souled, grovelling
multitude toil and win, the true soul and the brave heart shall faint and
fail? Never! Though disdaining to use the arts and
subterfuges by which others conquer, the time comes for work, and, if the
man be ready, he takes his place where he ought. Of myself, and the
little I find time to do, truly I can say—
|
One boon from human being I ne'er had,
Save life, and the frail flesh-covering
With which 'tis clad." |
This is the only occasion in which we find NICOLL
indulging in this vein. And here it might have been, in some degree,
excited by sympathy with his gloomy friend. His natural character
was cheerful and hopeful. When a herd-boy, or a little assistant
worker in a neighbouring gentleman's garden, he had at times suffered,
silently and bitterly, the proud man's scorn; and probably he felt as an
indignity treatment of which a boy of less sensibility might have thought
nothing. In his beautiful poem "Youth's Dream"—he alludes to
these early feelings. We have heard a friend impute his Radicalism
or hostility to the aristocracy, to remembrance of the harsh and
ignominious treatment which he had received from his employers when a
boy—a child rather—engaged in rustic labour. Besides the pride and
sensibility with which nature had largely endowed NICOLL,
it is also to be kept in mind that he belonged to a family which, in the
same neighbourhood where they dwelt in poverty, had seen better days.
His Radicalism, however, rested on a broader foundation, though the sense
of social injustice may have been thus first awakened. No man ever
stood more proudly and firmly by his Order than ROBERT
NICOLL.
Upon another occasion, when his correspondent—who was very
apt to despond, or with whom sentimental despondency was, perhaps, first
an affectation, and then a habit, a not uncommon case among self-educated,
clever men—had probably been complaining of his daily drudgery, one of the
most decided marks of an ill-regulated mind, so long as men, however
highly gifted while in this world,
"Maun do something for their bread;"—
ROBERT NICOLL, who never gave
way to this querulous temper, who was, at all times, a hard, unflinching
labourer, and who had, moreover, a high idea of his vocation, thus replied:—
"What you say of newspaper writing is true—true as truth itself; but you
forget one part. It would, indeed, be hangman's work to write
articles one day to be forgotten to-morrow, if this were all; but you
forget the comfort—the repayment. If one prejudice is overthrown—one
error rendered untenable; if but one step in advance be the consequence
of your articles and mine—the consequences of the labour of all true
men—are we not deeply repaid? Whenever I feel despondency creeping
upon me—whenever the thought rises in my mind that I am wasting the 'two
talents' on the passing instead of the durable, I think of the glorious
mission which all have who struggle for truth and the right cause; and
then I can say—'What am I that I should repine; am not I an instrument,
however unworthy, in the great work of human redemption?' Would to
God, dear * * *, we had a Press totally free; for then men would dare to
speak the truth, not only in politics, but in literature. . . . . . Is
truth never to have fair play in the fields of literature, where all
should be her own?"
NICOLL'S fits of despondency, moods to which all men
are liable, whether poetical or prosaic, dull or bright, were rare and
short; and though subject to attacks of ill health, often proceeding from
over-exertion and mental excitement, and long without encouraging or fixed
prospects of any kind, he never really abated of heart or hope.
When we have cited an introductory passage of NICOLL'S
first letter to his young friend, we shall have done more to place the
real man before the reader, by giving his own confession of his faith,
than could be accomplished by long pages of description or panegyric.
He says:—
“Amid all this
world's woe, and sorrow, and evil, great is my faith in human goodness and
truth; and an entire love of humanity is my religion. Whether I am
worthy of becoming the object of such a friendship as I would wish to
inspire, it becomes not me to say; but this much I may hazard, that in my
short course through life—for as yet one-and-twenty is the sum of my
years—I have never feared an enemy, nor failed a friend; and I live in
the hope that I never shall. For the rest, I have written my heart
in my poems; and rude, unfinished, and hasty as they are, it can be read
there. Your sentiments on literature—the literature of the present
day, are mine. I have long felt the falsehood, or rather the want of
truth, which pervades it; and save when, like Falstaff, seduced by
'evil company,' I have been a worshipper in Nature's Temple, and intend to
be so. . . . .But I must tell you what sort of an animal bears the name of
ROBERT NICOLL.
Don't be alarmed; I mean not to 'take my own life' just now. I was
born in a rural parish of the Scottish lowlands:"—And he here repeats the
story of his father's bankruptcy, and the consequent hardships and
destitution of the family, continuing—"I commenced 'hard work' at eight
years of age; and from that day to this I have struggled onward through
every phase of rural life, gathering knowledge as I best could. Here
I am, then, at twenty-one, drunk with the poetry of life—though my own lot
has been something of the hardest; having poured from a full heart a few
rough, rude lilts, and live in the hope of writing more and better.
A Radical in all things, I am entering into literary life, ready and
willing to take what fortune may send,—
'For, Gude be thankit, I can plough.'
I do not rate my published volume too highly, for I know its defects; but
I think that by keeping to Nature—to what Wordsworth has called the 'great
sympathies'—I shall yet do better. If I do not, it shall not be for
the want of close, strict, untiring perseverance,—or single-minded
devotion to literature."
Having, in the spring of 1836, made up his mind to try his fortunes in
London, ROBERT wrote to his friends in Edinburgh for such letters of
introduction as they could, with propriety, give him. This scheme
appeared so hazardous and hopeless to those the most deeply interested in
his well-being, those who had ever regretted his early abandonment of his
own business, and exclusive devotion to literature, that Mr. Tait kindly
offered him some temporary employment in his warehouse, until something
better should occur. But he tells it best himself to his constant
correspondent:—
"EDINBURGH,
PARKSIDE, June 11, 1836.
"The last time I wrote, I expected to have by this time been
with you at Nottingham. But when I came to Edinburgh, on my way to
Hull, I found Tait and all my other friends decidedly against my going to
London without some certain employment before me. At last, to keep
me here, Tait offered me some employment in the meantime, until I can get
an editorship of some newspaper, which, I have no doubt, will be shortly.
. . . . The moment I get a newspaper, I mean to take a fortnight of leave
of absence and bend my way to N——. Perhaps staying here was the best
way after all. I have present employment at least; and my prospects
of succeeding shortly are good; while London was all chance—sink or swim,
succeed or fail. I wish the world were at the devil altogether;
'tis nought but toil and trouble—all weariness to the flesh, and double
weariness to the spirit. Nevertheless, it would be cowardly not to
fight our hour; and we must, therefore, do our best—till the tale be
told—the song ended—the bond sealed—the game, which men call life, played: so be it."
In the same letter occurs the following passage, drawn forth by his
cordial correspondent having made him the confidant of an attachment which
ended in matrimony, though some time later than NICOLL'S
own marriage:—
"The sentence I
liked best in your last letter was that which closed it; and I liked it,
not because it contained your approbation of something of mine, but
because it told me you had found a woman to love; and to be loved by.
You must be happy. I ask not, I care not, if she be beautiful,
accomplished, or wealthy—for this I care not; but I know that she
must have a noble heart, or * * * had never loved her."
He had not confided the secret of his own engagement to any one beyond his
immediate family circle.
During the few months of this season that NICOLL
lived in Edinburgh, he became acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Howitt, who
were that summer travelling in Scotland; and he spent a good deal of his
leisure time at Laverock Bank, where his last days were too soon to be
spent. Many little anecdotes of him at this and other times dwell on
the memory of his Edinburgh friends, though they may not have the same
interest for the public. To the most observant of these friends, to
woman's eyes, his state of health, even at this period, appeared very far
from being satisfactory, though he made no complaint whatever, and
probably had no feeling or warning of approaching danger.
His attachment in Dundee, and his extreme anxiety to relieve
his mother from the small pecuniary involvements (great to her) which she
had incurred in order to enable him to establish his library, rendered him
exceedingly desirous to obtain the employment for which his friends
conceived him, with all his early disadvantages, at least as well
qualified as many who filled similar situations. And those whose
advice had kept him in Edinburgh were as happy as himself, when, by the
kind intervention of Mr. Tait, he procured the situation of editor of the
Leeds Times, with even the comparatively narrow salary of £100
a-year. He made a short farewell visit to his mother, and to his
betrothed in Dundee; and returning to Edinburgh, took leave of his
friends there, and set out for Leeds in high spirits—Mr Tait taking due
care of the respectability of his outer man, which ROBERT
considered little more than do the lilies of the field. His mind was
instantly fired and absorbed by the duties of his new calling, and by the
realization of some of his soaring hopes of "making the world better yet."
He had had considerable experience, while in Dundee, both in writing for
newspapers, and in addressing Radical audiences; and he possessed the
eminent qualification of understanding, and keenly sympathizing in all the
feelings and objects of the masses. What was called the "faltering
policy" of the Whigs, had, about this time, gone far to alienate the
Reformers of the working-class; and, accordingly, with the Whigs the
young Radical editor kept no terms; nor could he, in the case of their
organs—though his natural manners were mild and conciliatory—he made to
comprehend the ordinary conventionalities of party warfare, or the
courtesies of rival editorship. He would stoop to nothing but the
truth, and the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. His friends
in Edinburgh, who, probably on very ample grounds, considered themselves
sufficiently Liberal, and sufficiently staunch, were even somewhat
scandalized by his unmeasured and unsparing attacks on the ministerial
paper of Leeds, (The Leeds Mercury), and the politics of its
respectable conductor.
So perfectly was NICOLL adapted to the
wants of the crisis, and with so much enthusiasm and energy did he devote
himself to his harassing and multifarious duties, that in a few weeks
after his arrival in Leeds, the circulation of The Leeds Times
began to rise, and continued to increase with unprecedented rapidity.
He had gone to Leeds in August; and in October he wrote to his Laverock
Bank friends that he had had a severe cold. He was, in return
advised to get lodgings out of the town if possible, and to be careful
against exposure to cold. His habitual temperance, or rather
abstemiousness, was favourable to his health at this time; although, on
the other hand, he must have lived in an almost constant fever of mental
excitement from one cause or another, from the period that he went to
Leeds, until the hour that he left it. The success of the newspaper
gave him very great pleasure, for his heart was in every word that he said
in it; and he had himself the fullest faith in the truths and opinions
that he was diffusing.
After he had been for some time in Leeds, we find him writing
in high spirits to his brother William, who had, before this period, been
apprenticed to a cloth-merchant in Perth:—
"You will see I am speaking boldly out, and the people here like it; and
the proprietor of The Leeds Times is aware that it is to my
exertions he owes the wonderful success of the paper. We are near
3000, and increasing at the rate of 200 a-week. . . . .We are beating both
Whigs and Tories in Yorkshire rarely. . . . .I am engaged on a long poem
just now, which will be by far the best thing I have ever written.
It is founded on the story of Arnold of Bresica, which you will find in
Gibbon about the year 1150. Read it. You will see what a glorious
subject it is. Was not yon a glorious dinner at Halifax? It made
the souls of the aristocracy quake. . . . .The Howitts, William and Mary,
are living in London and . . . .was at their house with a great company of
literary people, among whom the conversation fell on myself. After
praising my poetry as first-rate, what think you was the compliment Mary
Howitt paid me?—why, that I had 'the finest eyes' (ye gods and little
fishes!) she had ever seen! Now, she has seen the eyes of Southey,
Moore, Campbell, Wordsworth; in short, she has seen the eyes of all the prosers and poets of the age—and mine the finest! But as Solomon
says—'all is vanity.' Cunning chap that Solomon. . . . .
"P.S.—I like Hobson very much. He never sees the paper till it is
printed. I mean to have a higher salary though. The Perth
Chronicle won't do unless they speak up. What's the use of
mumbling?"
To his literary friend and correspondent, who had also about this time
obtained the editorship of a newspaper, he writes towards the end of the
year:—
"I see you are beginning to tell me that I now see the truth of what you
told me of the world's unworthiness; but stop a little. I am not
sad as yet, though a little tried in spirit at being as it were bound to
the wheel, and hindered in a great degree from those pursuits which I love
so well; and with which I had hoped to have entwined my name. But I
am hindered from feeling the soul of poetry amid woods and fields, I yet
trust I am struggling for something worth prizing,—something of which I am
not ashamed, and need not be. If there be aught on earth worthy of
aspiring to, it is the lot of him who is enabled to do something for his
miserable and suffering fellow-men; and this you and I will try to do at
least. Let us not complain.
"Your first number is excellent. You are sure of
success; but a word in your ear: give fewer extracts from the papers,
and more news. You will find this advice worth attending to. . . . .
You will get The Times regularly. It is succeeding
gloriously. The circulation is now at 3000 a-week, and it is still
rising rapidly. Don't I give them the pure doctrine? The
truth makes people stare, and buy likewise; so 'tis both pleasant and
profitable.
"How do you get on with Tait? Did he not pay me
a compliment last month, by dubbing me the Ultra-Radical, and writing up
the Mongrel Tory-Whig Mercury,[3] as the Radical? However, it is all fair; but had The Times been in need of a
puff, it would have been darned.
"How is E * * *? I trust well and happy. And now
for a secret. I am going down to Dundee next week to be married!
Ye gods and little fishes!"
Even those who condemned the rashness and violence of NICOLL'S
opinions, and his indecorous attacks on the Whig party (for it was ever
the special object of his hostility), must have given him full credit for
sincerity. And truly in the alleged peccant state of the public
press, it is refreshing to peruse such an extract as the following, from
the confidential correspondence of two very clever young provincial
editors. The case was this:—
His friend had been engaged to conduct a Whig or Ministerial
newspaper, started in an agricultural English county "to serve the
interest." The Radical editor was cautioned by his constituents not
to be rash, and to "enlighten and elevate the population gradually;" in
short, to serve the Whig party, and nothing more. He rebelled
against the proprietors at a very early period of his engagement, and
threw up his situation, though with no brilliant prospect
elsewhere—indeed, with no prospect whatever. On this occasion, NICOLL,
a warm sympathiser, writes him:—
"You have done right. Whatever maybe the consequences, yon ought not
to have submitted for an hour. There are always plenty of slavish
souls in the world without breaking into the harness such a spirit as
yours. Had you asked me for my advice, I would have bidden you do as
you have done. The brutes among whom you were placed would soon have
broken your spirit, or, by constant iteration, have swayed you from the
right. Keep up your spirits. You are higher at this moment in my
estimation, in your own, and in that of every honest man, than ever you
were before. I trust it is not in the power of disappointment and
vexation to bend such a soul as yours. Tait's advice was just such
as I would have expected from him—honest as honesty itself. You must
never again accept a paper but in a manufacturing town, where you can tell
the truth without fear or favour; and that you will not be long in finding
a paper suitable to you lam certain. You are now known, and I defy
the world to keep down one like you."
After other ardent expressions of sympathy, and some matters of advice and
detail, NICOLL sends this message to the young lady
to whom his friend was engaged, and who might be presumed to be deeply
disappointed at seeing her lover thrown out of employment, and their
mutual hopes again deferred to an indefinite period,—
"Tell E * * * from
me to estimate as she ought, the nobility and determination of the man who
dared to act as you have done. . . . Prudent men will say that you are
hasty. But you have done right, whatever may be the consequences."
For the encouragement of young editors to maintain their integrity, and
persevere in the honest course, it should be told that the individual in
question almost immediately obtained a better appointment.
Towards the middle of December, 1836, NICOLL
stole a few days from his incessant toils, and came down to Dundee to be
married. His father and mother met him there; and without loss of
time, he returned to Leeds, with his bride. Her mother, who
thence-forward formed a member of his household, soon followed.
Their small establishment was placed upon the most prudent and economical
foundation; and while any measure of health continued to be spared to
him, his home was, in all respects, as happy as any one in which young and
pure affection ever found a sanctuary. His wife, younger than
himself by a year or two, possessed considerable personal beauty, and
sweet and gentle manners; but above all, unbounded admiration for the
talents of her husband. Her health was, like his own, delicate, and
her original constitution apparently much more fragile. Their elder
and wiser friends might, for this and other prudential reasons, have
fancied their union premature; but this, also, was probably the best.
In his brief career, poor NICOLL tasted largely of
all the higher enjoyments of life,—
|
Of all the pleasures of the heart,
The lover and the friend. |
Though Mrs. NICOLL must in the first
period of their married life, have appeared likely to precede him to the
grave, she survived him for a considerable period, before falling a victim
to the same fatal malady that carried him off.
During the spring of 1837, NICOLL, in
letters addressed to his young friend, frequently alludes to the happiness
of his humble home. Between it and his office duties, between
politics and poetry, his time was divided and very fully occupied.
His habits and opportunities had never at any time led him into what is
called society; and in a letter to Edinburgh, after he had been several
months in Leeds, he mentioned that he had no acquaintances, and had never
once dined out of his own lodgings.
His professional duties were of themselves incessant and
harassing. The Leeds Times is a paper of a large size; and
in reporting, condensing news, writing a great deal for every number of
the print, and maintaining a wide correspondence with the working-men
reformers in different parts of the country, he had no assistant.
Yet amidst these engagements, poetry was not wholly forgotten. The
numerous additions to the original edition of his Poems and Lyrics, since
published, were mostly written in Leeds, in the autumn of 1836, and in the
early part of 1837; and, as evidence of haste, they were all written in
pencil.
In the spring of 1837, to increase his salary, which was but
slender remuneration for his labours, NICOLL was
induced to write the leading article for a paper just then started in
Sheffield. This, taken altogether, was dreadful overtasking even for
a man in full health. The proprietors of that paper still owe NICOLL'S
family the reward of labours, which, with his rapidly declining strength,
must have been far too severe. But his spirit was unfaltering; and
his courage, his fortitude, and power of endurance, long held out against
every difficulty. All this while, his friends in Edinburgh and in
Perthshire had no reason to be apprehensive on his account. When he
did write, which was seldom, it was in high spirits at the success of the
paper under his management, and his own prospects. He had lately
been very happily and suitably married; and as a brief season of economy
was sufficient to retrieve whatever might have been deemed imprudent in
that step, ROBERT'S well-wishers, who knew nothing
of his failing health, had for him everything to hope, and nothing to
fear.
The spring of 1837 proved cold and ungenial, and NICOLL
felt its influence; but there were deeper causes at work than weather and
season. He had long carried in his breast the seeds of disease,
which under other circumstances might have been overcome, or have been
kept dormant, but which many causes now contributed to develope.
The finishing blow to his health was given by the general
election in the summer of the same year, when the town of Leeds was
contested by Sir William Molesworth, in opposition to Sir John Beckett.
Into this contest NICOLL naturally threw himself
with his whole heart and soul. As an enthusiastic Radical, as the
editor of a Liberal print, as a man now looked up to by a considerable
portion of the ten-pound electors, and all the intelligent non-electors,
he was trebly pledged to this cause; and those who have contemplated his
character, even as it is faintly indicated in this sketch, may imagine the
intensity and ardour with which, on this occasion, he exerted himself.
After a very severe struggle, the Liberal cause triumphed in Leeds; but
the contest left poor NICOLL in such a state of
exhaustion that his wife afterwards said—and we can well believe it—that
if Sir William Molesworth had failed, ROBERT would
have died on the instant. He was destined to linger on for a few more
suffering months.
By this time it was the month of August; and NICOLL'S
illness had lasted so long, and the symptoms had become so urgent, that
his wife and her mother felt it their duty to apprize his parents of the
delicate state of his health. They accordingly wrote to
Tulliebeltane. He had, however, been so averse to any communication
being made that might alarm his mother, that she was warned not to tell
whence the painful information had reached her; but to say, if he put any
question, that a friend, who had seen him in Leeds, had informed her of
his illness. This will explain the commencement of the following
letter, which is in reply to his mother's letter of anxious inquiry.
It is, besides, the last letter he ever wrote to her:—
"LEEDS,
Wednesday, Sept., 13, 1837.
"MY OWN DEAR MOTHER,—This
morning I received your letter. The ‘kind’ friend who was so
particularly kind as to alarm you all out of your senses, need not come to
my house again. Before, I did not write you all about my illness,
because I did not wish to make you uneasy; but it shall be no longer so.
I will tell you how it began—when it began—its progress—its present
state."
Having described his case at length, and given the opinions of the medical
men, and those of his wife and his mother-in-law, in the manner most
likely to soothe the fears of his mother, he, at the same time, owns that
he is very weak—that the quantity of medicine he was taking deprived him
of appetite; and that he had made up his mind to be an invalid through
the winter, and meant, if possible, to obtain a respite of a few weeks
from labour. He then proceeds to another subject, probably in answer
to some message from his venerable and pious grandfather:—
"My love to aunt and grandfather; tell both that I do not know how I
could better serve my God than by serving my fellowmen. HE
gave me a mission, and I trust I have done my best to fulfil it. As
for you, dear mother, dear father, I bid you be of good cheer; I shall
recover yet, though it will take a while. And if I do not, I trust I
am prepared calmly to meet the worst. My life has not yet been a
long one, but I have borne much sickness—sickness such as opens the grave
before men's eyes, and leads them to think of death; and I trust I have
not borne this, and suffered, and thought, in vain.
"I have told you the whole truth—every word of it; and you
will see how exaggerated the account you have received must have been.
I am sorry for Willie's illness. My love to him—to my own dear
father—to Joe, Charlotte, and Charlie. . . . . We have had much rain here.
I hope the harvest is progressing fast. I was dreaming last night
about grandfather. I thought he and I were making hay on the green.
My love to grandfather—tell him not to be alarmed. Write soon, and
tell Willie to write. How we long for letters from 'home.' “
About the time that this letter was written, a Delegate from the
Working-Men's Association of London visited Leeds, on some political
mission, and saw the now-famed Editor of The Leeds Times, whom he
found apparently in the last stage of a decline. On his return to
London, this Delegate apprized ROBERT'S
correspondent, so often alluded to; and that kind friend, besides writing
immediately, entreating NICOLL to give himself a
season of repose, and to come up to him with his wife, also wrote to Mr.
Tait, to inform him of the full extent of NICOLL'S
danger. This roundabout intelligence, which was the first intimation
of his serious illness they had received, greatly alarmed his Edinburgh
friends; and the step was instantly taken, to which he so affectionately,
and with an excess of grateful feeling, refers in the subjoined letter to
his brother William. For some time previous to this he had been
unable to drag himself even to the printing-office; and his various weary
and heavy tasks had been gone through at his own dwelling. From
anything that appears, the proprietors of the newspaper knew much less
about him than strangers at a distance. One generous friend [4]
whom he had found in Leeds, had, at this time, a lodging in Knaresborough; and he induced ROBERT and Mrs. Nicoll to go to
that place for a fortnight, for relaxation and change of air. When
there, he rode about on a donkey, seeming to enjoy at least the
comparative ease and leisure of his position; and his young and anxious
wife even flattered herself that he was getting better. His own
letters, his own feelings, were a surer index to the truth.
KNARESBOROUGH,
October 10, 1837.
"MY OWN DEAR KIND
BROTHER,—Both
your letters have been received, and I would have answered them long ago,
had I been able. I came to this place, which is near Harrowgate, and
eighteen miles from Leeds, about a fortnight ago; but I feel very little
better for the change. My bowels are better; but I am miserably
weak, and can eat little. My arm is as thin as that of a child a
month old. Yet it is strange that, with all this illness and
weakness, I feel as it were no pain. My breast, cough, and all have
not been so well for years. I feel no sickness, but as sound and
wholesome as ever I did. The length of time I have been ill and my
weakness alone frighten me; but whether I am to die or live, is in a
wiser hand. I have been so long ill I grow peevish and discontented
sometimes; but on the whole I keep up my spirits wonderfully. Alice
bears up, and hopes for the best, as she ought to do. O, Willie? I
wish I had you here for one day—so much, much I have to say about them
all, in case it should end for the worst. It may not—but we should
be prepared. I go home to Leeds again on Friday.
"Thank you for your kind dear letter; it brought sunshine to
my sick weariness. I cried over it like a child. . . . . Sickness
has its pains, but it has likewise its pleasures. From * * * and
others, I have received such kind, kind letters; and the London Working
Men's Association, to whom I am known but by my efforts in the cause, have
written me a letter of condolence, filled with the kindest hopes and
wishes.
"I have just received another letter from Tait, which made me
weep with joy, and which will have the same effect upon you. He bids
me send to him for money, if I need it; and urges me to leave Leeds and
the paper instantly, and come to Edinburgh, where there is a house ready
for me; and there to live, and attend to nothing but my health, till I
get better. He urges me to this with a father's kindness, and bids
me feel neither care nor anxiety on any account. . . . . .And so
delicately, too, he offers and urges all this. How can I ever repay
this man and the Johnstones for such kindness.—Should I do this? I
known not . . . .You admire my articles: they are written almost in
torment.
"You will go to Tulliebeltane on Sunday, and read this letter
to them. Tell them all this. I wish my mother to come here
immediately to consult with her. I wish to see her. I think a
sight of her would cure me. I am sure a breath of Scottish air
would. Whenever I get well I could get a dozen editorships in a
week, for I have now a name and a reputation.
"My mother must come immediately. Yet I feel regret at
leaving the paper, even for a season. Think on all that you, and I,
and millions more have suffered by the system I live to war against; and
then you will join with me in thinking every hour misspent which is not
devoted to the good work.
"Dear, dear Willie, give my love to them all—to my parents—to
Joe—to Maggie—to Charlie—to aunt—to grandfather. Write, to say when
my mother comes. Write often, often, and never mind postage. I
have filled my paper, and have not said half of what I wished. . . . .I
can do nothing till I see my mother. I cannot find words to say how
I feel Tait's kindness. Write soon. I have much more to say,
but I am tired writing. This is the most beautiful country you ever
saw; but I have no heart to enjoy it.—God bless you,
"ROBERT NICOLL."
The only hope which NICOLL'S friends in Edinburgh
could now entertain was placed in at once withdrawing him from his
professional duties, and their attendant mental harassments, and in
obtaining the best medical advice.
Though NICOLL left Leeds without
leaving one penny of debt there, it could not be supposed that, when he
had been little more than one year in his situation, and that the year of
his marriage, he could have saved anything. His little debt to his
mother, or rather her obligations for him, still hung most painfully upon
his mind. He had fondly hoped, instead of burthening, to be able to
aid her and the family; and, in the meanwhile, he had involved her.
The first look of his generous and devoted mother, who at once went up to
Leeds, [5] must have banished these distressing
feelings. There was nothing to be thought of save restoring him to
health, if that were still possible; and, in every event, of ministering
to his comfort and solace.
NICOLL now became impatient to reach
Scotland; and he took leave of his friends, the Reformers of the
West-Riding, in a short address, which the deep sincerity of his heart,
and the solemn circumstances under which it was written, rendered doubly
emphatic. It may be given as a specimen of his prose style:
"TO THE RADICALS OF THE WEST-RIDING.
"BRETHREN!—Ill
health compels me to leave your locality, where I have laboured earnestly
and sincerely, and I trust not altogether without effect, in the holy work
of human regeneration. I go to try the effect of my native air, as a
last change for life; and, after the last number, I am not responsible
for anything which may appear in The Leeds Times, having ceased to
be Editor of that paper from that date.
"I could not leave you without saying this much, without
bidding you, one and all, farewell, at least for a season. If
I am spared, you may yet hear of me as a Soldier on the People's side: if
not, thank God! there are millions of honest and noble men ready to help
in the great work. Your cause emphatically is
|
The holiest cause that pen or sword
Of mortal ever lost or gained. |
And that you may fight in that cause in an earnest, truthful, manly
spirit, is the earnest prayer of one who never yet despaired of the
ultimate triumph of truth.
"ROBERT NICOLL."
The fervent hope which the dying young poet thus expressed, is almost
exalted to prophecy.
NICOLL left Leeds, accompanied by his wife, his
mother, and his mother-in-law, to proceed by the steamer from Hull to
Leith. It is an interesting fact, that, on the morning when he was
seated in the railway carriage, to proceed from Leeds to Selby, on his
homeward journey, pale, worn, and exhausted, but with the remains of a
handsome and prepossessing countenance, he was met for the first and last
time by Ebenezer Elliott, who had warmly and generously appreciated his
dawning genius, and foretold his future eminence. Mr. Elliott was,
at this time, coming to Leeds to deliver a Lecture on Poetry, at the
request of some Young Men's Association of the place, and was quite
unprepared to see the spectre of the young Scottish poet, who had returned
his admiration with tenfold fervour. The only poetry we have ever
heard NICOLL recite and dwell upon, was Elliott's.
Mr. Elliott was naturally much more affected by this hasty passing
interview, this exchange of looks between the Dead and the Living, than
was poor NICOLL, already overcome with the pain and
languor attending his removal.
He arrived in Leith towards the end of October, and came at
once to Mr. Johnstone's house at Laverock Bank, the family being then in
Edinburgh. He was immediately visited by Dr. Andrew Combe, in whose
skill his friends placed the utmost reliance, and even considerable hope.
The Doctor kindly and generously continued his gratuitous visits from time
to time; and his nephew, Dr. James Cox, became NICOLL'S
regular medical attendant. If attentive neighbours, skilful
physicians, kind friends, and the most tender and devoted care of his own
family, could have saved him, ROBERT NICOLL
would have been restored. Their affection, at least, smoothed his
way to an early grave.
For some weeks he seemed to rally; and the most threatening
symptoms of his disease was temporarily checked. If the winter could
only be got through, it was now fondly hoped that he might still struggle
on; and in this hope his mother returned to the home from which she could
ill be spared, to her family and her little traffic; and his sister—"The
only sister" of his poetry, and his brother William, shortly
afterwards came to see him.
There was one friend to whom it was imagined that he wished,
at this time, to intrust his MS. poems, and the care of that reputation so
dear even to the dying poet, but the subject was sedulously avoided in the
dread of causing excitement; for, unlike the majority of cases of
consumption, NICOLL'S case was attended by
considerable nervous irritability. In the meanwhile, Mr. Tait had
informed Sir William Molesworth of the condition of the editor of The
Leeds Times; of his destitution, and the very faint hope that was
entertained of his recovery. Sir William at once sent him an order
for fifty pounds, accompanied by a letter remarkable for delicacy and
kindness.
NICOLL did not long outlive the receipt
of this timely supply, which he received in the same spirit in which it
was sent. Early in December the worst symptoms of his disorder
returned in an aggravated form; and his medical advisers, who had never
been sanguine, gave up all hope. His parents were immediately
written to; for up to this time, his father, a hard-working man, well
advanced in years, had not been able to visit him. Instantly on
receipt of the letter, and at nightfall on a December day, they left their
cottage at Tulliebeltane, and, walking all night, reached Laverock Bank, a
distance of fifty miles, on the afternoon of the following day, and but a
few hours before their early-called and gifted son, in whom they must have
placed so much of mingled pride and hope, breathed his last. It is
the poor only—it is those who are called upon to suffer and to sacrifice
for each other, who have the high privilege of knowing to the full extent
how Divine a thing is family affection.
ROBERT NICOLL
died in his twenty-fourth year, sincerely lamented by those who knew him
best. His remains were followed to the church-yard of North Leith by
a numerous and respectable assemblage, consisting chiefly of gentlemen
connected with the press in Edinburgh. Those editors of liberal
newspapers, in Scotland and England, to whom NICOLL'S
character and talents were known, bore warm testimony to his abilities,
and his labours in the cause of Reform. Nor did memory lack the
tribute, dear to the bard, of contemporary verse.
In stature, NICOLL was above the middle
height; though a slight stoop made him appear less tall than he really
was. His person, though, at the age of twenty-three, not robust,
gave no indication of constitutional delicacy. His features were all
good; and the habitual expression of his countenance was pleasing;
generally thoughtful, but readily kindling and brightening into the
highest glee, accompanied by a merry laugh. The eyes, to which he
playfully alludes in one of the above letters, were of that intense, deep
blue which, to a casual observer, often looks like black; and were quiet,
animated, or glowing, according to the varying mood of the moment.
He had the warm-coloured, dark-brown hair, and sanguine complexion, which
are found with such eyes. His manners and habits were in nowise
peculiar,—simple, quiet, unpretending, and manly. He would probably
have been called careless in his dress; though not so much as to excite
notice. He was liable to little fits of absence or embarrassment;
but this was probably owing to his newness to society, for no one noted
more keenly, or apprehended more quickly, whatever passed in any
conversation that interested him—or, in other words, had his wits more
acutely about him. He was passionately fond of the simple music—the
song and ballad music—which he understood, and had first heard around "Our
Auld Hearthstane." In this style he liked to hear his wife chant
such ballads as the Flowers of the Forest; and, alone by his own
fireside, to pour forth his over-brimming emotions in musical strains
certainly more fervid and energetic than graceful or scientific.
There is an internal, a mute music, in which NICOLL,
like Burns and Scott, and the other timber-toned or rough-voiced bards,
must have had power; yet, NICOLL'S actual musical
accomplishments did not rise greatly above those of the Ettrick Shepherd,
whose very popular singing possessed in fire what it sadly wanted in
grace.
And now the last duty to ROBERT NICOLL
is fulfilled to the best of the present means of those who hailed the
bright promise of his youth, and who still cherish the memory of his worth
and his talents, when we shall have mentioned to the few persons familiar
with his original volume, that all the pieces which appeared for the first
time in the second edition (fifty-two in number), were carefully printed
from copies taken from his pencil-writing, and examined and compared with
the originals by his brother, who copied them; and by Mr. Johnstone, who
was quite familiar with his hand-writing.
This imperfect sketch of NICOLL'S short
life may be aptly concluded by the testimony borne to his genius by a
kindred spirit—Ebenezer Elliott. If different in degree, as one star
differs from another in glory, they, as men and poets, belonged to the
same system. It was said of NICOLL by the
Corn-Law Rhymer, that "Burns at his age had done nothing like him;" and
though NICOLL might neither have had the
transcendent genius of a Burns to animate, and undoubtedly not the fiery
passions of Burns to struggle with and control, the simple fact as regards
their respective written poetry, at the age of twenty-three, is
undeniable. Of NICOLL, his generous admirer of
Sheffield further says—"Unstained and pure, at the age of twenty-three,
died Scotland's second Burns; happy in this, that without having been a
'blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious," he chose, like Paul, the right
path; and when the terrible angel said to his youth, 'Where is the wise?
where is the scribe? where is the disputer? hath not God made
foolish the wisdom of this world !'—he could and did answer, 'By the
grace of God, I am, what I am.' . . . .
ROBERT NICOLL is
another victim added to the hundreds of thousands who 'are not dead, but
gone before,' to bear true witness against the merciless."[6] |
