Read Ebook: Western Worthies A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West of Scotland Celebrities by Jeans J Stephen James Stephen

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The Duke of Argyll, 9

The Right Hon. H. A. Bruce, 16

Sheriff H. G. Bell, 23

Mr. Robert Dalglish, M.P., 36

Mr. William Graham, M.P., 42

Mr. George Anderson, M.P., 47

Sir James Campbell, 57

Mr. James Young, 63

Mr. George Burns, 71

Mr. James Baird, 79

Sir William Thomson, 88

Principal Barclay, 95

Professor Rankine, 101

Professor Allen Thomson, 109

Professor John Caird, 117

Rev. Dr. Norman Macleod, 123

Rev. Dr. Robert Buchanan, 134

Mr. Robert Napier, 143

Mr. James Watson, 152

Rev. Dr. William Anderson, 159

Rev. Dr. John Ker, 165

Rev. Dr. Eadie, 172

Mr. Daniel Macnee, R.S.A., 178

Mr. Thomas Corbett, 182

Mr. Edward S. Gordon, M.P., 191

WESTERN WORTHIES.

THE DUKE OF ARGYLL.

George Douglas Campbell, the present head of the Ducal House of Argyll, unites in himself many of the most estimable qualities that enabled his ancestors, apart from the mere accident of birth, to achieve greatness. That he is one of the most exalted of Scotland's aristocracy, a great territorial magnate, and entitled to take a high place in the Council of the nation, are facts external and independent of his own intrinsic merits. But the same remark does not apply to the Duke's rare diplomatic and literary abilities, to the sageness of his wisdom, to the maturity end value of his experience, and to the kindly qualities of his heart. Pope spoke of an ancestor of his Grace as--

"Argyll, the State's whole thunder born to wield. And shake alike the Senate and the field;"

The Duke of Argyll's political career has been long and illustrious. He first took office as Lord Privy Seal under Lord Aberdeen's administration in 1852. After Lord Palmerston had assumed the reins of Government he was continued in this place until, in 1855, he exchanged it for the office of Postmaster-General. In the following year he went out of office; but in 1867 he was again induced to accept the Lord Privy Seal, an appointment which he continued to hold until 1859. In 1860 he was restored to the slightly more lucrative but much more responsible and useful appointment of Postmaster-General. When the present Administration was formed, the Duke was elected to the office of Secretary of State for India, the Under-Secretary being Mr. Grant Duff, the member for the Elgin Burghs, than whom no man alive has a more thorough acquaintance with Indian affairs.

The Duke of Argyll is married to Lady Elizabeth Georgina, second daughter of George Greville, second Duke of Sutherland, by whom he has issue five sons and seven daughters. The eldest son, who has recently allied himself to Royalty, gives promise, as we have already indicated, of possessing in an eminent degree the talents that have so much distinguished his ancestors. Both the Marquis of Lorne and his Royal partner are extremely popular, and the alliance which has been consummated amid the fervent aspirations of a whole nation, is bound to raise still higher the influence of the ducal family of Argyll. Alexander, the second son of the Duke, was born in 1846, and married, in 1869, Miss Jane Sabella Callendar, ward of his father, and daughter of the late James Henry Callendar, Esq. of Craigpark, Stirlingshire. The only other married member of the Duke's family is Edith, his first daughter, who was espoused by Earl Percy, the eldest son and heir of the Duke of Northumberland.

For the benefit of the curious in such matters we may mention that the Duke's titles are, by writ 1445, Baron Campbell; 1457, Earl of Argyll; 1570, Baron of Lorne; by Royal charter, 1701, Duke of Argyll; Marquis of Lorne and Kintyre; Earl of Campbell and Cowal; Viscount of Lochow and Glenila; Baron Inveraray, Mull, Morven, and Tory, in the Peerage of Scotland; 19th December, 1766, Baron Sundridge of Croombank; May 4, 1776, Baron Hamilton, in the Peerage of England; Hereditary Master of the Queen's Household; Keeper of Dunoon, Dunstaffnage, and Carrick Castles; Heritable Lord-Lieutenant of Argyllshire.

The literature of the Herald's College sets forth that the arms of Argyle are--Quarterly, 1st and 4th, Girony of eight pieces topaz and diamond for Campbell; 2d and 3d, pearl, a lymphad, or old-fashioned ship with one mast, close sails, and oars in action; a diamond with flag and pennants flying; ruby for the Lordship of Lorne; crest on a wreath, a boar's head, couped proper, topaz. Supporters, two lions guardant, ruby. Motto--"Ne Obliviscaris." Behind the arms there are two honourable badges in saltire, which his Grace's ancestors have borne a long time, as Great Masters of the King's Household and Justiciaries of Scotland. The first is a battern topaz, same of thistles, emerald, ensigned with an imperial crown proper, and thereon the crest of Scotland, which is a lion sejant guardian ruby, crowned with the like crown he sits on, having in his dexter paw a sword proper, the pommel and hilt, topaz; and in the sinister a sceptre of the last. The other badge is a sword, as that in the lion's paw.

The Duke is proprietor of the greater part of Argyllshire--a county having an area of 2,432,000 acres, of which only 308,000 are under cultivation. The greatest breadth of the mainland is about 115 miles; and from the windings of the numerous bays and creeks, with which the land is everywhere indented, the county is supposed to have more than 600 miles of sea coast. His chief seats are--Inverary Castle, on the banks of Lochfyne; Roseneath Castle, Dumbartonshire; Longniddry, Haddingtonshire; Halnaker, Sussex; and Argyle House, Camden Hill, London.

THE RIGHT HON. H. A. BRUCE.

The Right Hon. Henry Austin Bruce is a native of Wales. He was born at Duffryn, Aberdare, Glamorganshire, and is both by birth and training a thorough Cambrian. His father, who is still living, was for several years Stipendiary Magistrate at Merthyr, and once contested that borough unsuccessfully with Sir John Guest. He was originally a Mr. Knight--a patronymic which, in 1805, he changed to Bruce, and afterwards, in 1837, to Pryce. The Member for Renfrewshire is, therefore, described as the second son of John Bruce Pryce, Esq., of Duffryn, St. Nicholas, Glamorganshire, by Sarah, the second daughter of the Rev. Hugh Austin, Rector of St. Peter's, in Barbadoes. Paternally, he is a nephew of the late Lord-Justice Knight Bruce, who was spared to see him attain the dignity of Privy Councillor, but not long enough to witness his admission to the rank of a Cabinet Minister. It may be added, for the purpose of completing these domestic details, that his great-grandfather, Mr. Bruce of Kennet, was High Sheriff of Glamorgan more than 150 years ago; and, further, that he himself has been twice married, his first wife being Annabella, the only daughter of Richard Beadon, Esq., of Clifton, Gloucestershire; and his second wife, to whom he was married in 1854, being Norah, the youngest daughter of the late Lieutenant-General Sir William Napier, K.C.B., the author of that matchless military narrative, the "History of the Peninsular War," and distinguished also as the brother of the heroic conqueror of Scinde. The reader will thus perceive that the Member for Renfrewshire, who might be supposed from his patronymic to be a Scotchman, is not even connected closely by family ties with this part of the Island. His position, however, as the member for Renfrewshire, and his consequent intimate connection with the West of Scotland, may excuse his appearance in these pages.

In 1837, when he was only 22 years of age, Mr. Bruce was called to the bar. He practised at the Chancery bar, and attended the Oxford Circuit for two years. He withdrew from practice in 1843, but still retained his name on the rolls of Lincoln's Inn. In 1847, four years after this withdrawal, he received the appointment of Stipendiary Magistrate at Merthyr-Tydvil and Aberdare, the office previously held by his father, and for a period of more than five years he presided at the Police Courts of those towns. From this office he retired in the December of 1852, when he was elected Member for the Merthyr boroughs, the seat having become vacant by the death of that Sir John Guest whom his father had unsuccessfully opposed many years previously. Mr. Bruce has all along manifested a deep interest in the affairs of his own neighbourhood. He was Deputy-Chairman of Quarter Sessions in his native county of Glamorganshire, and he was also Chairman of the Vale of Neath Railway, Captain of the Glamorganshire Rifle Volunteers, and fourth Charity Commissioner of England and Wales.

Mr. Bruce retained his seat for Merthyr without interruption for a period of seventeen years. He had been ten years in the House of Commons when, in the November of 1862, he was nominated to office by Lord Palmerston; and it is worthy of remark that he was then appointed Under-Secretary of the very department over which he now presides--the post which was conferred the other day by Mr. Gladstone on the young and promising Member for Stroud. Mr. Winterbotham has not had to serve as long a political and administrative apprenticeship as his chief; for at the early age of twenty-seven, and after a Parliamentary career of only two years, he has leapt into the office which Mr. Bruce did not procure till he was twenty years older and a Member of ten years' standing. This significant fact seems to "point a moral." It shows that there is now-a-days a better chance for the man who is capable for an important political post, despite his circumstances and antecedents. Mr. Winterbotham is as staunch a Liberal and as pronounced a Nonconformist as any of his ancestors; and yet, as we have seen, he is appointed at twenty-seven by Mr. Gladstone to an office which Lord Palmerston did not bestow upon Mr. Bruce until the latter was verging on fifty; and it is not at all improbable that Lord Palmerston, when he made the appointment in 1862, took credit to himself for stretching a point in favour of a laborious and deserving man?

It has been argued that Mr. Bruce had not the elevated motives which must inspire a thoroughly successful minister of education; that he was still the police magistrate in his ideas; and that he wished to call in the schoolmaster to aid in the repression of crime. But it is only fair to add that he never said a word to show that he did not value education for itself, and in his own locality he has been a constant patron of Mechanics' and other educational institutions. Again, it has been said that his rejection by the house-holders of Merthyr at the general election, indicated that he had not really succeeded in winning the confidence of the working classes. But there are other circumstances to account for this that ought not to be lost sight of. The constituency was suddenly increased from 1390 to 15,500, two-thirds of whom could neither read nor write. They chose, with great judgment, Mr. Richard, an eminent Nonconformist; with less judgment, Mr. Fothergill, an ironmaster, who had been conspicuous for the manner in which he had enforced "Truck," and opposed education. A new constituency naturally chose new members. But nearly 6,000 voted for Mr. Bruce, including, with very few exceptions, every man of education in the borough. One circumstance that was prejudicial to Mr. Bruce's interest, was his refusal to support the Ballot. Up to 1868 he had never voted either for or against that measure; but during the long contest which preceded the election of November, 1868, he saw much to recommend the Ballot, and to weaken his objections to it. Therefore, when he stood for Renfrewshire, on the death of Captain Spiers, he declared his devotion to the Ballot unsolicited.

For a Scotch Member to be also a Cabinet Minister is, at present, a conjunction of exceeding rarity; and no less exceptional is it to find the county of Renfrew returning to the House of Commons one who is not a politician of native growth. For its size it has been remarkably prolific in statesmen of ability. One of its burghs can point to such memorable names as Wallace of Kelly, and Murray Dunlop; and the county itself has, in our day, been represented by that brilliant scholar and historian, the late Colonel Mure of Caldwell, who was the lineal descendant of the Mures of Rowallan, one of the very oldest of our Scottish families, and who was an embodiment of many of the finest qualities which have characterised the members of that ancient and honourable house. Nor can we forget that the sad event which made way for the return of a stranger was the sudden death of Captain Spiers of Elderslie--one who was just beginning to be appreciated by the general public, as they saw the gradual development of qualities which were solid rather than brilliant, and in whom were united manliness and modesty in a degree which is rarely to be seen, and which now gives more than a touch of pathos to his memory. There was no want of local talent to supply the vacancy so unexpectedly and painfully made by the removal of Captain Spiers, but a combination of curious circumstances, and chiefly the state of transition which at the moment characterised the politics of the two most likely candidates, left the field open for a stranger, while the enthusiasm felt in this part of the island for the new Prime Minister made it almost a matter of course that the vacant seat should be conferred, on terms unexampled for magnanimity and ease, upon that statesman who had been singled out for the post of Home Secretary by Mr. Gladstone, but who, having been thrown overboard at the general election by the new constituency of Merthyr-Tydvil, was still destitute of the essential condition to the retention of the high honour to which he During the attack he rolls his eyes fearfully and threatens she must die because she is responsible for everything. I arrange that the patient should see me only twice a week after that. But on the third appointment he failed to appear, because I had stipulated as one of the first conditions of my treatment that he must go to work. The very next day he reacted with several attacks. The father found that the treatment proved "too exciting" for the boy, and I agreed readily to give up the analysis when the father took entirely the son's side and disagreed with the suggestion that the boy must take up some occupation.

This case shows the outbreak of homosexuality during the attacks and an affective relationship to the mother such as is shown by many homosexuals, as we shall explain more fully later.

The reverse also happens,--heterosexuals committing homosexual deeds during the attacks. The repressed components of sexuality always break through during the attack.

The following case shows that the attacks may also be simulated:

How closely related are make-believe and illness with every neurotic! This young man suffered also from fear and disgust of women but that, as well as his whole anxiety neurosis, disappeared completely under psychoanalytic treatment. The case stands as one of my most successful therapeutic accomplishments.

In one place he emphasizes that the genuine homosexual is indifferent towards woman and shows no disgust:

But another passage of the work reveals the opposite view:

"A Bavarian merchant relates: 'As a result of repeated intercourse with women I have acquired a serious nervous derangement, a strong sense of lassitude associated with vomiting and migraine lasting for days. The odor exhaled by woman causes me greatest distress. I am now unable to gratify a woman, but on the other hand contact with a soldier makes me happy, it strengthens and revives me.'"

In the passage next following he expresses himself even more plainly:

Such accounts prove that the attitude of the homosexual towards the opposite sex is not one of indifference. Where that is claimed it may be doubted; at any rate it does not correspond with psychoanalytic experience. Hatred, anger, disgust, physical discomfort serve as protections against the other sex. That is true of male as well as of the female homosexuals.

In 1839, Mr. Bell was appointed a Sheriff-Substitute of Lanarkshire, with a salary of ?400 per annum. The appointment lay with Sir Archibald Alison, who is said to have been favourably impressed with his successor's conduct while acting as junior counsel for the Glasgow cotton-spinners when they were brought to trial in the spring of 1838 for conspiracy. When Mr. Bell became Sheriff-Substitute, the duties of the office were very light compared with what they are at the present time. For a number of years his only colleague was the late Mr. George Skene, who subsequently became Professor of Law in Glasgow University. Indeed, the duties of the Sheriffs continued to be comparatively easy up to 1853, when the passing of the Sheriff Court Act, which compelled Sheriffs to take all notes of evidence in their own handwriting, rendered the work much more laborious. Their salaries were raised from time to time, in proportion to the increased irksomeness and responsibility of their duties; and it is a fact worth noting, that whereas Mr. Bell, as Sheriff-Substitute, had only ?400, Mr. Dickson, in the same sphere of labour, has now ?1400 per annum.

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