Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/79

 X. JULY 28, 1MB.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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assigned to Logan the ' Ode to the Cuckoo,' and in reference to this Anderson wrote to him thus :

" I have since seen your account of Bruce, which, so far as it goes, is pleasing and interesting. I hope, however, you will do me the justice to cancel the sentence relating to me. I dp not com- plain of its coldness, but of its unfairness. In my narrative I followed Dr. Baird's authority in assigning the ' Ode to the Cuckoo ' to Logan."

Here we have a very important admission. Dr. Baird was the Principal of Edinburgh University, who had at first believed in Logan, but in 1796 he published an edition of Bruce's 'Poems,' in which he included the ' Ode to the Cuckoo' without comment. He had seen reason to change the opinion by which Anderson had guided himself, and the explanation given (in a letter quoted by Dr. Mackelvie) is to the effect that "Dr. Baird has found the ' Cuckoo ' to be Michael Bruce's, and has the original in his own [Bruce's] handwriting." Either this copy, or another like it, was seen by Prof. Davidson of Aber- deen, son of Bruce's medical adviser in Kinross. Davidson says his father never doubted Bruce's authorship of the poem knowing it familiarly and apart from Logan's publication, as Pearson and other friends knew it and he adds for himself that, " in 1786 or thereby," he had the satisfaction of seeing the poem in the author's own hand- writing. It was " written upon a very small

quarto page, with a single line below it

and signed * Michael Bruce.' " Underneath the poem, he adds, was the remark, " You will think I might have been better employed than writing about a gowk " (provincial Scotch for cuckoo). This is the kind of " documentary evidence " that would be of the last importance if it were available, but, pendingitsproblematicalrecovery, why should there be any hesitation in accepting the statements of honourable witnesses? These men had nothing to gain by disseminating falsehood, and they all knew the full signifi- cance of their words.

Dr. Baird's change of front is specially notable. It is, perhaps, too much to hope that the MS. by which he was convinced will yet come to light ; but things equally remark- able have happened. Meanwhile the copy or copies seen by him and Prof. Davidson more than counterbalance the importance of the version in Logan's handwriting, which is said to have come under the notice of his cousin, Mrs. Hutcheson. That Logan would circulate the poem as written out by himself is a perfectly plausible surmise, and, at any rate, he had ample opportunity for making

such an experiment, as Bruce's MSS. were in his possession for about three years before he published the " miscellany." On this point, however, Dr. Anderson's view may suffice. In the life prefixed to Logan's ' Poems ' he writes :

" If the testimonies of Dr. Robertson and Mrs. Hutcheson went the length of establishing the existence of the ode in Logan's handwriting in Bruce's lifetime, or before the MSS. came into Logan's possession, they might be considered de- cisive of the controversy. The suppression of Bruce's MSS., iu must be owned, is a circumstance unfavourable to the pretensions of Logan."

Anderson thus shows his desire to be per- fectly fair, just as he elsewhere does wnen declining to be swayed by the possible par- tisanship of Robertson on the one hand, and David Pearson on the other. He also displays his sense of just and reasonable decision when he defers to the influential judgment of Baird. Here we find the beginning of the editorial currents. ' Principal Baird's original position led Anderson to the conclusion he adopted, and it also produced a line of editors and commentators who had neither oppor- tunity nor inclination for direct investigation of the subject. This accounts for the atti- tude of Chalmers, Southey, D'Israeli, Camp- bell, and so on. Again, Dr. Mackelvie and Dr. Grosart, accepting Principal Baird's deli- berately revised, decision, have hot only assigned the poem to Bruce, but, by rare and assiduous diligence and editorial skill, have accumulated overwhelming evidence in favour of his authorship. When the attention given to the matter by all other editors and antho- logists together is com pared with the laborious and untiring devotion, the consuming zeal, and the judicial attitude of these scholarly experts, the contrast presented is as that of moonshine unto sunshine or as that of water unto wine. THOMAS BAYNE.

In ' Between the Ochils and Forth ' (Black- wood, 1888) the author, David Beveridge, says (pp. 86, 87) :

" There can be little doubt, both from the evi- dence of Bruce's letters and that furnished by con- temporaneous testimony, that a base and unworthy fraud was committed by Logan in appropriating the authorship of the ode."

And after an allusion to the singeing of fowls story he adds : " Logan long enjoyed his chief reputation as a poet on the strength of this unrighteous spoliation." I quote the above without pronouncing any opinion on the merits of the case. GEORGE ANGUS.

St. Andrews, N.B.

SNODGRASS, A SURNAME (9 th S. ix. 366, 496). The late Mr. Robert Langton, one of the