70
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. x. JULY 26, 1902.
of his friends It was during the summer vaca-
tions of the college that he composed the following
Poems To make up a miscellany, some poems,
wrote by different authors, are inserted, all of them original, and none of them destitute of merit. The reader of taste will easily distinguish them from those of Mr. Bruce, without their being parti- cularized by any mark."
With this somewhat self-contradictory and perplexing statement before him as a means of guidance, it is not very clear how " the reader of taste " could be expected to show his discernment, especially as nothing of Bruce's had previously appeared. One obvious thing to do would be to assign to the author named on the title-page the best things in the book, and thus the ' Ode to the Cuckoo,' as the masterpiece of the collection, would from the first be considered the work of the poet eulogized in the introduction. The " miscellany," on the editor's own showing, was a collection of the poems of Michael Bruce, associated with whom were certain unnamed authors, included, apparently, for the sake of padding, and introduced with a somewhat apologetic commendation. This was the way to exalt Bruce and to depreciate his companions, whose claims to attention would naturally be regarded by comparison as somewhat insignificant. The confusion began when Logan in 1781 included the ' Cuckoo ' in a volume published under his own name.
As regards Campbell's assertion that " the charge of stealing the ' Cuckoo ' from Bruce was not brought against Logan in his life- time," it may simply be said that this is one illustration of Campbell's imperfect acquaint- ance with the subject. The matter was judi- cially examined over a ' Bill of Suspension and Interdict,' by which in 1781 Logan at- tempted to prevent _the reissue of the 1770 volume by Bruce's friends. He then declared himself the " proprietor " of the poems sug- gestively avoiding the specific claim of authorship and asserted, in his instructions to his agent, that " Mr. Logan was entrusted by Michael Bruce, previous to his death, with these very poems." As this was untrue, he naturally failed to secure evidence, the case went against him, and the volume was printed at Edinburgh " by J. Robertson for W. Ander- son, bookseller, Stirling." This is what is known as the reprint of 1782. Surely, if Logan had been the author of the ' Ode to the Cuckoo,' and the other pieces in the " miscellany " that his advocates have claimed for him, this was the occasion for establish- ing his rights. As a matter of fact, what he did establish, by clear inference from his own words, was that the poems were Bruce's.
Mr. Young, his law agent in the case, ex-
pressed his estimate of his client with out-
spoken frankness to Dr. Mackelvie. " Logan,"
he remarked, "certainly never said to me
that he was the author." Again, when Mac-
kelvie's edition of Bruce appeared, the same
candid witness gave his emphatic testimony
to the editor's labours in these terms :
" I really am at a loss to express to you my appro- bation of the manner in which you have executed the work, and the justice you have done to the talents and memory of a most extraordinary youth, more especially by rescuing them from the fangs of a poisonous reptile."
It is apparently proposed to discredit David Pearson's evidence on the ground that it was not given till after Logan's death ; and Dr. Mackelvie is quoted as writing that Pearson "had almost no education, under- standing by that term training at school." Pearson's views on the subject would be per- fectly well known from the first where they were likely to be understood and appreciated, but the difficulty would be to gain the atten- tion of a wide audience. Had there been at the time an appreciable body of public opinion, Logan would hardly have dared to publish as his own, without a word of explanation, a revised version of Dr. Dod- dridge's hymn ' O God of Bethel ! ' The man capable of thus utilizing a poem that had been before the world for nearly thirty years had a boldness of appropriation that must have been determined by his contempt for the general intelligence and the special knowledge of his time. Difficulties and scruples would vanish when he had to handle merely the unpublished MSS. of an obscure poet, who had died before tasting fame, whose relatives were poor and lowly, and whose intimate friends lacked position and power. Those were not the days of the popular news- paper and the monthly magazine, in which grievances, literary and other, could be dis- cussed, and Pearson, although a versifier, and a strong, upright, and independent character, was not a professional man of letters. While Mackelvie's estimate of his school education is probably correct, it is also true that Michael Bruce respected his abilities and gave him his fullest confidence. Dr. Ander- son, also, of the 'British Poets,' who came in contact with him, considered him " a man of strong parts, and of a serious, contemplative, and inquisitive turn, who had improved his mind by a diligent and solitary perusal of such books as came within his reach." This is a testimonial that might have been written for Shakespeare himself. Pearson prepared a memoir of Bruce after Anderson had
