recently beatified by the Vatican, or John Napier who discovered
logarithms. And then, from the early eighteenth century into the
nineteenth unfolded the incredibly creative trends of the Scottish
Enlightenment. David Hume, one of the pillars of modem philosophy,
observed in 1757: \"It is admirable how many men of genius this country
produces at present... At a time when we have lost our princes, our
parliaments, our independent government, even the presence of our chief
nobility... is it not strange, that in these circumstances we should
really be the people most distinguished for Literature in Europe?\" It
sounds as a vaunt, but there is something to sustain it.
The term \"Literature\" carried a much wider, encyclopedic sense then,
comprising all recorded knowledge or learning, and, indeed, a bright
constellation of Scots excelled in various branches of science and art. No
rigid dogmas were held by all of them, but many shared a profound interest
for practical improvements and social benefits of their enquiries,
stressing the links between different forms of human activity and studying
the principles which underlay them.
Apart from Hume himself, the leading philosophers of the age, whose
influence stretched from America to Russia, were Adam Smith, the father of
political economy, Thomas Reid, head of the \"common sense\" school, and
Adam Ferguson, a pioneer of sociology. Other scientists included the
eminent historian William Robertson; William Cullen, who established
chemistry in its own right; Joseph Black, the investigator of latent and
specific heat; James Hutton, whose \"Theory of the Earth\" gave birth to
modern geology; and the famous medical dynasties of Hunter and Monro.
Learned societies and journals blossomed, and, as a natural offshoot, the
\"Encyclopaedia Britannica\" started in Edinburgh in 1768.
Practice went alongside theory. James Watt revolutionized industry with
his steam engine; William Symington devised the first practical steamboat
(\"Charlotte Dundas\", 1802); Charles Mackintosh patented the water-proofing
process; James Neilson introduced the hot blast for smelting iron; Robert
Brown first recognized the cell nucleus and Brownian motion; John MacAdam
perfected the method of road-construction and Thomas Telford, nicknamed
\"Colossus of Roads\", became the leading civil engineer of his time. Later
on Scots made decisive contributions to the development of electricity,
magnetism, thermodynamics and, eventually, telephone, television and
radar. .
In another sphere, that of travel, the names of African explorers James
Bruce, Mungo Park and David Livingstone would be familiar to geographers.
Alexander Mackenzie traversed North America for the first time, and a
succession of dauntless polar travellers followed. Captain James Cook
himself was a Scot on his father\'s side. All of them left valuable and
fascinating accounts of their discoveries.
In visual arts Scottish achievements are rather less spectacular, but some
figures cannot be overlooked. In architecture Robert Adam and Charles
Cameron are unsurpassed by any eighteenth-century master; the former built
in Britain, the latter in Russia, but both concealed exquisite and
fanciful decorations behind imposing classical facades. Allan Ramsay and
Henry Raeburn led the way in British portrait painting. Subsequently many
gifted Scots took part in various artistic movements, notably the Celtic
Revival, while Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868- 1928) emerged as one of
the prophets of European Art Nouveau.
Three literatures in one
Scottish literature is a remarkable phenomenon if only because it makes
use of three languages: Scotish, Gaelic and English, let alone a good
number of medieval writings in Latin. The first, a Germanic tongue
deriving from old Anglo-Saxon, absorbed many Norse, Gaelic, French and
Dutch elements, and by the fourteenth century markedly diverged from its
southern neighbour. The notion (officially enforced after the Union of
1707) that it is just a sort of \"bad\" or corrupt English is simply
incorrect. Scotish has as long a pedigree as English, and in many of its
forms is closer to the common ancestor. It enjoyed a national and
government status until King James VI with his court departed for London
in 1603, and expressed itself in an outstanding literary tradition,
especially poetry. Scotish came of age by the 1370s, when John Barbour
composed \"The Bruce\", an epic poem, historical chronicle, biography of
King Robert I and chivalous romance all in one. Mention must be made of
other celebrated medieval \"makars\" (authors): King James I, Blind Harry,
Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas (translator of Virgil\'s
\"Aeneid\" into Scots), David Lindsay and Alexander Mongomerie.
After a certain lull came the wonderful eighteenth-century resurgence of
Scots in the verse of the prolific native school crowned by Robert Burns.
No one could aspire to the fame of national poet with more justice, not so
much because of his humble origin and farmer\'s toil, but because he was
and is dear to any compatriot, whether a penny less tramp or a mighty
lord. He was equally skillful in English and Scotish, though always
preferred the latter. Many of his poems spring from folk ballads, and to
this day are sung all over the world. He expressed the very soul of
Scotland with such sincerity and depth that their names are inseparable.
Burns is well-known and loved in many lands outside Scotland, but perhaps
nowhere as much as in Russia. Ivan Turgenev admired him as \"a clear
fountain of poetry\".
Owing to its rich legacy, expressive powers and modern works in every
genre, Scotish is now firmly back on British literary scene. In the
recent translation of the New Testament, with typical Caledonian humour,
only one character is speaking English - the devil.
Gaelic tradition in Scotland dates back to first centuries A.D. It shares
with Scots the thankless fate of a native language encroached upon by an
aggressive foreign idiom, and often artficially suppressed, but their
history is as different as Celtic speech is from Germanic. Scottish
Gaelic, naturally, owes much to its sources in Ireland, although by
the sixteenth century the two dialects could be told apart. Oral
communication of lore has always been paramount in the Highlands and
Western Isles even to the present, and hereditary dynasties of bards and
story-tellers thrived at the courts of MacDonald, Campbell or MacLeod
chiefs. One such amazing line, the MacMhuirichs, lasted over eighteen
generations. In time many legends, chronicles, genealogies, etc. were
written down and printed. Another crucial mark of Gaelic literature is
its inextricable link with music and singing, and some of the loftiest
songs appeared in the Jacobite period. Government \"pacification\" of
the Highlands after 1746, eviction of local landholders and their
exodus abroad caused a dramatic decline of Gaelic culture. Today less than
100,000 people can read and write Gaelic, although of late there are some
encouraging signs of recovery.
Ironically, nothing drew more attention to Gaelic heritage than the
English texts of James Macpherson, published in the early 1760s as
translations of the ancient Celtic bard Ossian, son of Fingal. Macpherson,
himself a Gael, toured the Highlands and collected tales and verse there,
although he used the material rather freely and invented much of it. His
success, however, was tremendous. Ossianic poems appeared in all major
European countries, inviting a host of imitations and comparisons with
Homer and Dante.
English-language works of Scottish origin made a late appearance, but
appealed to a wide audience, and several authors proved in no way inferior
to their English colleagues. James Thomson wrote the highly acclaimed
sentimental poem \"The Seasons\" as well as the anthem \"Rule, Britannia\";
Tobias Smollett produced a string of brilliantly grotesque novels
including \"The Adventures of Roderick Random\" and \"The Expedition of
Humphry Clinker\", while James Boswell\'s \"Life of Samuel Johnson\" became
one of the most celebrated biographies ever penned in English.
But arguably the greatest Scottish writer, both in terms of versatility
and impact at home and abroad, is Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Fostered
by native lore, he gathered and issued old ballads in his \"Minstrelsy of
the Scottish Border\", composed sublime poetry of his own (\"Lay of the Last
Minstrel\", \"Lady of the Lake\") and wrote numerous dramatic, historical and
antiquarian works. He is best remembered as one of the titans of the
Romantic movement, who almost single-handedly established the form of
historical novel and, according to some, the short story as well. Much of
the action in Scott\'s verse and prose (\"Waverley\", \"Old Mortality\", \"Rob
Roy\", \"Heart of Midlothian\", \"Redgauntlet\", etc.) is set in Scotland, and
he relied on his perfect knowledge of the Scotish tongue to portray his
colourful characters by colloquial means.
Other examples of native literary talent range from the eccentric but
awesome nineteenth-century sage Thomas Carlyle through Robert Louis
Stevenson (who also has many fine poems in Scots) to James Barrie and Alan
Milne, whose serious essays were overshadowed by the youthful glory of
Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh.
Trotting the Globe
An old joke, \"Rats, lice and Scots: you find them the whole world over\",
is well founded in fact. Strong Scottish detachments fought on the French
side in the Hundred Years\' War (an astonishing figure of over 15,000 men
about the year 1420). In the mid-sixteenth century Scots made up almost
14% of the population of the Danish port Elsinore, while by 1650 their
community in Poland is said to have numbered 30,000. Few corners of Europe
were not frequented by Scots, for whom the continent soon became too
narrow.
Predictably, they played an outstanding part in the making and running of
the British Empire and the states that succeeded it in America, Africa,
India, Australia and other parts. \"Every line of strength in American
history is colored with Scottish blood\" was the remark of President
Woodrow Wilson. But their reach extended far beyond the English-speaking
world. \"Go into whatever country you will, you will always find Scotsmen.
They penetrate into every climate, you meet them in all the various
departments of travellers, soldiers, merchants, adventurers, domestics...
If any dangerous and difficult enterprise has been undertaken, any
uncommon proofs given of patience or activity, any new countries visited
and improved, a Scotsman has borne some share in the performance\" - no
self-applied boast, but a comment from an English witness.
In the early nineteenth century Lord Cochrane commanded the navies of
Chile and Brazil. Somewhat later Thomas Blake Glover from Fraserburgh
helped to reform Japan along Western lines, and became the first alien to
be decorated by the mikado. In Russia the Scottish record includes the
earliest waterworks in the Moscow Kremlin, first observatory and first
steamship, among other industrial, military and scientific innovations,
while Gordons, Braces, Greigs, Barclays and Lermontovs (whose forebears
came from Dairsie in Fife) have done honour to their ancestral land and
their adopted country. Volumes can be (and have already been) dedicated to
the theme of Scottish impact abroad. Scots integrated with incredible ease
into almost any environment, but even if they left home with nothing but
an edition of Burns, they could never forget where they came from.
\"Scotland forever!\" was the battle cry of Scottish regiments serving
overseas -and the thought of many a peaceful settler on distant shores.
Conclusion
In the end I\'d like to show the main obvious differences between the
Englishman and the Scot? The Scotsman is more self-conscious about his
nationality (and knows as a general rule, much more about his national
history) than the Englishman; he is much less self-conscious about his
social class, about the school and university he went to.
He is more stiff and reserved at a first meeting than the Englishman but
also, when he feels he has made a friend, more frank in the expression of
opinion and in the display both of anger and sentiment. He is more
argumentative, and less tactful than the Englishman; he has often a
heartier or a noisier sense of fun but perhaps a less subtle sense of
humour. His sense of the family is more extended and tenacious than is
common among modern Englishmen, and usually he keeps in touch with uncles,
aunts, and cousins scattered not only over Scotland itself but in London
and in the Dominions, particularly Canada and Australia. The quality of
life which Scotsmen miss abroad and for which they seek each other out, is
certain homeliness. Few Scots ever lose their narative accent. Accent and
manner are, for Scots abroad, badges of mutual recognition, and draw
exiled Scots everywhere together for old school, old university and for
the celebration of Burns\'s Night. The Scotsman\'s idea of a good time is
one had by men together while the women are safely at home looking after
the children. And thus the public house, for instance, in Scotland is not
as in England a family institution, but rather (as in Ireland) a place
where men get away from their families.
References
Digest, - №1/1996.
English, - издательский дом «Первое сентября» №№1, 8, 17/1995, №12/1999
Kirill\'s and Mephody\'s big encyclopedia (computer encyclopedia).
VisitScotland Magazine-guidebook - 2004
Who is Who in Britain, - Москва, «Просвещение», 2000
www.royal.gov.co.uk
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