Bad Spelling46
There is a story of a man who borrowed a volume of Chaucer from Charles Lamb, and scandalized the gentle Elia in returning it by the confidential remark, “I say, Charley, these old fellows spelt very badly.” We do not know what this precision would have said of the lords and ladies of Morayshire 150 years ago, for, with few exceptions, they spelt abominably. Even Henrietta, Duchess of Gordon, daughter of the celebrated Earl of Peterborough, who writes most sensibly and affectionately to her “deare freind, Mistress Elizabeth Dunbar,” is not immaculate in this respect. She talks of a “gownd,” is “asured there will be an opportunity,” and speaks of “sum wise and nesessary end.” But it is a shame of us even to appear to disparage this excellent lady for what was then such a usual infirmity. Her letters are, perhaps, the most worth reading of any in Captain Dunbar’s collection, and her literary criticisms on the books she wishes her “deare freind” to read are especially interesting. The gentlemen were, perhaps, still more careless than the ladies in their spelling. Here are a couple of notes, the latter of which is enough to make a modern salmon-fisher’s mouth water:—
“Cloavs, Jnr 29, 1703.
“Affectionat Brother,—Cloavs and I shall met you the morou in the Spinle moore, betwixt 8 and nine in the morning, where ye canot miss good sporte twixt that and the sea. ffaile not to bring ane bottle of brandie along, ffor I asheure you ye will lose the wadger. In the mean time, we drink your health, and am your affectionat brother,”
“R. Dunbar.”
“To the Laird off Thunderton—Heast, heast.”
“Innes, June 25, 5 at night.
“Sir,—You will not (I hope) be displeased when I tell you that Wat. Stronoch, this forenoon, killed eighteen hundred Salmon and Grilses. But it is my misfortune that the boat is not returned yet from Inverness, and I want salt. Therefore by all the tyes of friendship send me on your own horses eight barrels of salt or more. When my boat returns, none, particularly Coxton, shall want what I have. This in great heast from, dear Archie, yours,”
“Harrie Innes.”
“I know not but they may kill as many before 2 in the morning, for till then I have the Raick, and to-morrow the Pott. These twenty years past such a run was not as has been these two past days in so short a time, therefore heast, heast; spare not horse hyre. I would have sent my own horses, but they are all in the hill for peatts. Adieu, dear Archie.”
Our ancestors seem to have regarded spelling much as we regard the knowledge of French. It was disgraceful not to have a smattering of it, but exceptional to have mastered it thoroughly. When we compare the above notes, which would not confer much credit on a modern national schoolboy, with a letter written by Duncan Forbes in 1745, we find ourselves in quite a different atmosphere. The Lord President is terribly angry with the Elgin justices for winking at smugglers; but he writes like a scholar and a man of business. While on the subject of spelling, we must select from Captain Dunbar’s collection two choice specimens of cacography, a “chereot,” and “jelorfis.” The reader will probably guess that the former stands for chariot, as cheroots were then unknown, but we defy him to unravel the latter without the context. “Jelorfis” is the phonetic utterance of an unlucky wight who had got into prison for giving a chop to another man’s nose, and stands in his vocabulary for “jailer’s fees.” There are several characteristic letters from the celebrated Lord Lovat, in which his Scottish pawkiness and French courtliness, no unusual mixture early in the eighteenth century, are clearly displayed. This singular personage, who may be described as Nature’s outline sketch of a character which she afterwards elaborated in the Bishop of Autun, but who, unlike Talleyrand, had the misfortune to die in his stocking-feet, wrote his letters on gilt-edged paper, enclosed in envelopes, and in these honied words addresses the Dunbar of that day:—
“I am exceeding glad to know that you and your lady are well, and having inquired at the bearer if you had children, he tells me that you have a son, which gives me great pleasure, and I wish you and your lady much joy of him, and that you may have many more, for they will be the nearest relatives I have of any Dunbars in the world, except your father’s children; and my relation to you is not at a distance, as you are pleased to call it, it is very near, and I have not such a near relation betwixt Spey and Ness; and you may assure yourself that I will always behave to you and yours as a relation ought to do; and I beg leave to assure you and your lady of my most affectionate regards, and my Lady Lovat’s, and my young ones, your little cousins.”
Lord Lovat wrote this letter when he was past seventy. Four years later, Dr. Carlyle, of Inveresk, then a mere youth, met him at Luckie Vint’s tavern. He describes him as a tall, stately man, with a very flat nose, who, after imbibing a goodly quantity of claret, stood up to dance with Miss Kate Vint, the landlady’s niece. Five years later still, his head fell on the scaffold at Tower Hill.47 Here we may pause to observe a curious instance of traditionary linkage. Dr. Carlyle died within the first decade of this century, so that many persons still living may have conversed with one who had been in company with a man born early in the reign of Charles II. Lovat was not only fond of flattering other people, but liked to be flattered himself also. This he accomplished by the simple expedient of sending self-laudatory puffs to the Edinburgh Courant and Mercury, for the insertion of which paragraphs he paid from half-a-crown to four shillings each.