William Tidd Matson, Michael Bruce and John Logan: Defence of John Logan against the charges of misappropriating works of Michael Bruce, alleged or implied by Julian and others: transcription of a pamphlet by Wm Tidd Matson, from a copy in the Congregational Library, London.
Matson's footnotes throughout this pamphlet are indicated by an asterisk (as in the original pamplet), followed by a link which will display the note in question.
His reference to Julian's Dictionary concerns the article on pp.187-9 of the Dictionary of Hymnology, where arguments for and against Bruce's authorship of the disputed texts are summarised.
[ For the (abbreviated) text of Julian's article, click here > > > ]
In this file:
(1) Title page of Wm Tidd Matson's pamphlet ( A letter to Mr Henry Putman of Portsmouth ) .(2) Text of the "letter to Mr Henry Putman"
(3) Appendix A: "The Doddridge Hymn"
(4) Appendix B: W.T.Brooke's Aspersions of Logan's Character
(5) Appendix C: Unreliability of Julian's Dictionary
Hogg's Queen's Wake
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[Text of letter to Henry Putman]
Dear Sir,
Nothing sticks like calumny, so rooted is the propensity in human nature to believe the worst rather than the best about a man, and thus it has fared with the abominable charges of literary felony brought by Mr William MacKelvie of Balgeldie, to traduce the fair fame of one of Scotland's sweetest and truest poets, the much injured John Logan.
As a student of Hymnology you have been looking forward like myself to the appearance of the Rev. John Julian's long promised Hymnological Dictionary *[Note1], and you will be surprised, as I have been, in turning to that part of it which related to the Bruce-and-Logan Controversy to find that his verdict is adverse to the view which you know me, from a thorough sifting of the whole question at issue, to entertain. Indeed Mr Julian has missed a fine opportunity. He might have subjected the case against Logan to an independent critical investigation and gained for himself the credit of exploding a fallacy which so many hymnal-compilers have taken on trust; he has not done this; instead he has been content to be deceived with the rest, to re-cook and dish up the stale slanders of MacKelvie and so make his great work of reference the means of perpetuating a now almost irreparable wrong upon the memory of a man of noble genius. For this I hold him greatly to be blamed, as he had from me a timely warning.
In undertaking what I intend to be a complete vindication of Logan, I am writing at a disadvantage; as in this small country village I am far from that great centre of reference, the Library of the British Museum. My own somewhat ample library happens to be deficient in several of the very works connected with this subject that I should wish to consult; and I am thus left very largely dependent on the resources of memory. I may therefore inadvertently make some minor mistakes. Should such be the case I am open to correction. At the same time I am sufficiently grounded in the whole controversy to know that they cannot affect tthe main drift of my argument.
At the outset, I must fix certain dates for they will be found of material importance. Michael Bruce died in 1767, The "Ode to the Cuckoo" was handed out among Logan's literary acquaintance in East Lothian in the same year. The father of Michael Bruce placed his son's manuscripts in Logan's hands in 1768 or 1769, which of the two is not very material, though Logan's Biographer *[Note2] thinks the latter date the most probable. Bruce's "Poems on Several Occasions" were published by Logan in 1770. Logan was appointed with others, by the Kirk Assembly, to revise the Scotch Paraphrases in 1775. The Volume of New and Revised Paraphrases thus prepared appeared in 1781. Logan died in 1788. James the brother of Michael Bruce died in 1814. Mr William MacKelvie's Charges against Logan first appeared in 1836.
It will be convenient for the purpose of this defence that I should divide my argument into Two Parts and consider First, the Presumptions in Logan's favor. Second, the so-called proofs against him.
1st. - It is to be noted that the hymns in question had been published and received as Logan's for fifty-five years; that Logan himself had been lying in his grave for forty-eight years, his poetic reputation established, and his hymns acknowledged favorites with the public, before ever any question was raised as to their authorship. MacKelvie's charges were made against a dead man; a man against whom he was safe, for he was powerless to rise and refute his assailant. I hold this to be a most formidable presumption in Logan's favor.
2nd. - It is impossible to concieve of any adequate motive why Logan should appropriate to himself the work of another. He was a man of rich native genius, of large acquirements, and of varied accomplishments. A consummate artist, his "Braes of Yarrow" is a perfect gem of lyric verse. The man who could write such a masterpiece of poetic beauty, had no need to lay any other under contribution, least of all one who was his inferior, and Bruce with all his youthful promise and budding genius was that to Logan.*[Note3] It was as though a man rolling in wealth should meanly pilfer a few paltry shillings from a poor man's scanty savings. The felony here is so unlikely that it is not to be credited without the clearest absolute proof, and even then we should say that if he stole, it was under the influence of kleptomania.
3rd. - The hymns in question belong to a peculiar class of devotional poetry. They are paraphrases of portions of Holy Scripture. In their class they are unrivalled. It is however a species of versification in which a poet's powers are necessarily "cribbed, cabined, and confined," and no writer of original genius would employ it to any large extent, unless under a special call or necessity. Bruce as I have said possessed true genius, but he was under no call to write paraphrases. *[Note4] Rather in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we should suppose that any hymns or religious poems upon which he might employ his powers would belong to a freer and more original type. Logan on the other hand was under a special engagement to prepare paraphrases. It was the task he had accepted at the hands of the Kirk Assembly, and how well it was accomplished let the universal popularity which these beautiful compositions have attained bear witness.
4th. - But for Logan, Michael Bruce and his poems must have remained unknown to the world. His was the rescuing hand that snatched them from oblivion. It was he who set on foot and organised the subscription to secure their publication; it was he who introduced them to public notice in terms of glowing eulogy. We are asked to suppose that combined with this generous purpose he had formed the nefarious design of robbing his friend of one half of his laurels. Is such a supposition for one moment credible? True, it is not impossible for the extremes of generosity and meanness to meet together in the same character, but the examples are so rare in their occurrence, that when one is presented to our view we require proofs of the most unquestionable certainty.
5th. - In any question of the disputed authorship of a literary work, experts and critics know that no proofs are so unerring and conclusive as those which are furnished by what is called internal evidence. To make my meaning plain to the ordinary reader, let me suppose that a man is charged with stealing another's purse and that it can be shown from the actual contents of the purse that it was really his own, no array of suspicious circumstances can be allowed to override the positive proof in his favor which is thus afforded. It is thus as regards these hymns of Logan. There is a delicacy of touch and polish about them displaying the traces of his own peculiar style, of that hand of which it may be said as Johnson said of Goldsmith's "it touched nothing which it did not adorn." In the "Christian World" of July 19th, 1890, I took the trouble to analyse one of these hymns, the well known and splendid hymn beginning: "Where high the heavenly temple stands," and I shewed how almost line by line it may be paralleled by individual turns of thought and peculiarities of expression in an unquestioned work of Logan, his drama of "Runnimede".
I subjoin the result.
- Where high the heavenly temple stands,
- The house of God not made with hands,
- A great High Priest our nature wears,
- The Patron of mankind appears.
- (1)
- (2)
- He who for men in mercy stood
- And poured on earth His precious blood,
- Pursues in heaven His plan of grace,
- The guardian God of human race.
- (3)
- (4)
- Though now ascended up on high,
- He bends on earth a brother's eye;
- Partaker of the human name,
- He knows the frailty of our frame.
- (5)
- (6)
- Our fellow-sufferer yet retains
- A fellow-feeling of our pains,
- And still remembers in the skies
- His tears, and agonies, and cries.
- (6)
- In every pang that rends the heart
- The Man of Sorrows had a part;
- He sympathises in our grief,
- And to the sufferers sends relief.
- (7)
- (8)
- With boldness, therefore, at the throne
- Let us make all our sorrows known;
- And ask the aids of heavenly power
- To help us in the evil hour.
- (9)
- (10)
Compare now the following from "Runnimede":
- (1) His house as sacred as the fane of Heaven
- (2) The Priest of Jesus is the Friend of Man.
- Her triumphs are the triumphs of Mankind.
- (3) With one consent adopt the plan of rights.
- (4) Hereditary guardians of the kingdom.
- The goddess of the isle,
- Who blessed England with a guardian smile.
- The glorious guardian of the human race
- Look down divine and bending from the sky.
- The guardian of the globe, she gives the law.
- (5) Her spotless heart, will on the moment's wing,
- Ascend a spirit (9) at the throne of heaven.
- Ascends anew a sovereign on her throne.
- (6) . . . Almighty Power,
- Who, on the feeling of a parent's heart,
- Hast founded human life, and strongly bound
- By love's embrace the families of men.
- (7) Witness these tears wrung from a tortured heart.
- I know his tender heart, I would not wish him
- To mourn my fate in bitterness of soul.
- (9) . . . Kneeling at the throne *[Note5]
- Conspire against the king.
- (10) O Thou that helper of the helpless art,
- O, be not absent in the hour of woe!
- Descend ye blessed angels to his aid.
Now we have here an incontestable fact, the man that wrote "Runnimede" wrote this particular hymn. A Mr W.T.Brooke (who claims to be a Hymnologist and who by his own confession has done as much as any man to spread the slanders against Logan), in the "Christian World" for the following week, rashly offered to parallel the hymn with similar lines from Shakespeare, Pope, or Byron and so prove the hymn to be theirs. Of course the notion was utterly absurd, but in a spirit of irony I bade him try, for I knew he promised an impossibility. To the present hour his undertaking remains unfilfilled, as it will to the day of doom. I have no doubt that were the other hymns in question submitted to the same testing process, the same result would be forthcoming, as they bear a strong family likeness, so that the expert can with even "half-an-eye" detect in them the coinage of one mint.
6th. - A certain fact supposed to tell against Logan, tells really in his favor. An additional stanza to "The Ode to the Cuckoo" has been produced, on the strength of which the authorship of this inimitable production (characterised by Burke as "the finest ode in the English language," and by D'Israeli, the elder as "magical stanzas,") has been claimed for Michael Bruce. I have no doubt that this stanza was the work of Bruce, suggested by the reading of his friend's poem, and by the prospect before him of his own early death. But it is in a different style from the poem itself, which as a work of art is rounded and complete without it; it introduces a sentiment of sadness which is incongruous with the joyous feeling that pervades the other stanzas; and must be rejected by every critic of artistic perception and good taste as a positive excrescence, like that stanza with its moral sentiment which Kirke White tacked on to "Go lovely rose," that exquisite lyric of the poet Waller. It seems however fully to explain those words of Bruce's quoted by Mr Chambers in his Cyclopoedia: "You will think I might have been better employed than writing about a gowk."
Now these consist entirely of mere "hearsay statements" *[Note6] collected by MacKelvie and which we are to take upon trust at his sole word as being faithfully reported. We are to assume that with his pre-determined theory to establish there was on his part an unfaltering truthfulness, that "nothing has been concealed and naught set down in malice," that he plied his informants with no leading questions, furnished them with no aids to furbish up their defective memories, offered them no artful suggestions so as to make their testimony shape into his own purpose, but that in all things he set about his work in a spirit of strict impartiality. Be it so! It is a very large assumption, nevertheless we will allow all this, and see what these proofs are worth.
1st. - It is alleged that Bruce in fulfilling his engagements as a Schoolmaster first at Gairney Bridge and afterwards at Forest Mill near Alloa, was in the habit of teaching his scholars hymns to be repeated by them, and that of those who had learned such hymns from him were some who were able to identify the hymns published by Logan as having been among the number. Now Bruce died in 1767. MacKelvie's charges were first published in 1836, so that these persons, if surviving at that time, must have been, at the least, between seventy and eighty years of age. These aged persons were people in humble life, Scotch villagers, and possessed therefore, we may suppose, of the average intelligence of persons of their class. Learning a hymn per week, and allowing them even no more than a few years' schooling, they would have ben taught to repeat about two-hundred hymns. Is it credible that after the lapse of some sixty years, the memories of these aged persons should have been so faultlessly accurate as to enable them, out of this whole number of hymns, to pick out those hymns claimed by Logan, and affirm without the possibility of mistake that they were among those which in childhood had been taught them by Bruce?
Or even allowing this, is it not within the bounds of possibility that as an intimate friend of Logan's, Bruce might have been in possession of copies of his friend's verses, and might have deemed them suitable to impart to his scholars without any idea that in after years they would be claimed as his own? I pity the reasoning powers of the mind which on the grounds of such testimony will conclude, that Bruce is to be regarded as the author of a number of compositions in the identical style of Logan, and that Logan afterwards feloniously appropriated these compositions to himself.
2nd. - It is alleged that James Bruce brother of the poet, a very worthy man, and for his position in life, possessed of a fair share of intelligence, declared from his own personal knowledge that all the paraphrases published by Logan were written by his brother Michael and that he had often read them and heard them repeated and sung before Logan's book was published. James Bruce died in 1814 so that twenty-two years had elapsed between that event and any use made of his statement, by way of questioning Logan's authorship. An ugly fact to say the least of it. But even allowing his testimony to be faithfully reported, his statement, if it proved anything, proves too-much; for among these paraphrases was what is known as "the Doddridge Hymn," *[Note7] which it is obvious on the face of it, that Michael Bruce had NOT written. The memory of this witness is superabundant, in deciding this nice question of authorsahip it is not to be relied on, and I am afraid we must ask him to stand down.
3rd. - There remains to be considered the statement concerning Bruce's father, which tells of the old man's grief at finding none of his son's religious pieces included in the volume of "Poems by Michael Bruce," which Logan edited and gave to the world; his searching out Logan at Edinburgh and demand for the return of his son's manuscripts; and Logan's statement that he was unable to lay his hands upon them but "he feared the servants had used them to singe fowls with." Now I make no doubt that Bruce had written some religious pieces and that Logan had not included these in the volume. He had made such a selection of his friend's poems, as with his fine critical faculty he judged on literary grounds would conduce to Bruce's fame. Some very eminent poets whose other writings have been much admired, when they have dealt with religious subjects have turned out but sorry stuff. Just as poetry itself is a gift which is special to some men, so the power of religious song is a gift which is special to some poets.
But old Bruce cared for nothing else; the literary merits of his son's writings were nothing to him, as witness the fact that when Bruce went invalided home he had to dispossess himself of some of his most valued books, Shakespeare among them, lest his father should find out that such works were among his reading. That Logan should not have published these pieces tells neither one way or the other.
But then, it may be asked why he did not return the manuscripts when demanded of him? For the very sufficient reason that he no longer had them to return. He had fulfilled his task as editor; he had acted to the best of his discretion, he had made his pick of all that he thought would contribute to his friend's fame, and as any other sensible editor would have done, treated the remainer as so much waste about which he gave himself no concern. There in the waste-basket or the lumber-room the servants at Sir John Sinclair's would find it, and use it as he told the old man "he feared for singeing fowls with" or he might have added for aught he could tell, for still baser purposes.
And these are the proofs (Heaven save the mark!) on the strength of which the compilers of modern hymnals have felt justified in striking out from the heading of some of our most admired hymns, to which it has been attached for more than a century, the name of Logan, and substituting that of Michael Bruce; these are the evidences of Logan's literary guilt which have induced Mr Julian to enter the field against him, and so weaken the authority and imperil the reputation of his own dictionary as a work of reference, and this is the flimsy fabric erected as a battery of assault against the reputation of one of the most brilliant men of letters of his age; one who was the idol of his fellow students at the University; the praise of his College Tutors and Professors; whose Philosophical lectures attracted crowded audiences; whose pulpit talents were the admiration of all who heard him; whose sermons published after his death passed through several editions; whose genius as a poet has been celebrated in song by Hogg, and whose ability as a prose-writer has won the commendatory tribute of Macaulay. *[Note8]
Of the propagators of this abominable slander I hardly dare trust myself to speak, so great are my indignation and loathing. There are men who seem to feast their souls upon the supposed delinquencies of others; to whom nothing affords more delight than to blacken an eminent reputation; the greater the reputation the keener the relish; so certain noxious winged and creeping things may settle at their ease and pursue their destructive work on the body of a dead lion, whom the noble creature while living might have crushed into instant nothingness by a single well-aimed and playful stroke of his leonine tail.
Do I feel too strongly on this subject? I have loved the poetry of Logan all my life. His name to me is a charmèd name. His "Ode to the Cuckoo" was the first poem that an honoured father taught my lips in early childhood to lisp; its dulcet music lives in my soul to the present hour. Besides I have myself contributed a few trifles to my country's hymnody, which whether deservedly or not have met with no small share of appreciation. Who knows but that when I have lain some fifty years in my grave, another MacKelvie may arise and seek to rob me of my hard-earned fame? In such a case may one be found to vindicate me as I have vindicated Logan.
Wm Tidd Matson
The following letter was written by me to a friend interested in this controversy, in July, 1890, having reference to two letters in the "Christian World" of June 26th, 1890, by Messrs W.T.Brooke and Francis Draper, in which the Doddridge Hymn was employed as an argument in proof of Logan's guilt.
My Dear Sir,
In the volume of poems which Logan issued in 1781, appeared without note or comment, the paraphrases which he had prepared (some original, some revisions,) as an active member of the Committee appointed to revise the Scottish Paraphrases of 1745. Among these in an improved and amended form, was Doddridge's "O God of Jacob by whose hand," and which is now so generally used by us as the hymn "O God of Bethel, etc." Now let us for the sake of argument place the worst possible construction upon this, let us suppose that in this he was conscious of an act of gross and guilty plagiarism, and what does it prove? Simply itself, and raises a prejudice presumptuously against him, that he who had no scruple as to stealing in one case, might be just as unscrupulous in regard to another.
But this is an argument which the advocates of the Bruce theory have no right to employ, for these gentlemen must not be allowed to blow hot and cold with the same breath. They have cut the ground from under their own feet; and have placed themselves out of court. They have put up their witness James Bruce to testify "in the most solemn manner," from his own personal knowledge, that all the paraphrases published in Logan's name were written by his brother Michael." [editorial note] So that if this testimony is to be held valid, it was not Logan but Bruce who took and amended the hymn from Doddridge, and as a piece of presumptive evidence it fails altogether. Those gentlemen may not plead that Logan stole the hymn from Doddridge as a presumption that he stole the same hymn in its amended form from Bruce. I impale them on the horns of a dilemma; they must either surrender their argument or repudiate their witness, and they cannot take the latter course without renouncing their theory altogether, as their whole case depends upon this man's testimony.
But I, who admit the fact while I dispute the inference, here submit that which Mr Brooke as a hymnologist very well knows, that there is no need whatever for putting a bad construction on this act of Logan's, *[Note9] and that no one would think of doing so, who was not intent upon using it, to bolster up an untenable but foregone conclusion. If Mr Brooke or myself were to publish a hymn the groundwork of which we had borrowed from another, we should of course feel bound either by way of note or preface to make mention of the obligation. But he knows that this was by no means the case with these eighteenth century hymnists. He knows that they borrowed and adapted without stint or scruple and never dreamt of recording their indebtedness. He knows that Ralph Erskine adapted wholesale from Watts and that often for the worse rather than the better. He knows that Cameron's hymn "How bright these glorious spirits shine," is an adaptation from Erskine of an adaptation from Watts. He knows that Berridge's "O happy saints who walk in light," is an adaptation from Erskine, and that his hymn "Jesus cast a look on me" is an adaptation from Wesley; but will he tell me that I am to infer from this that Erskine and Cameron and Berridge were unscrupulous scoundrels, and that these men whose names are venerated in all the churches were ready to act the part of the villain? Why I ask is Logan to be made the scapegoat and singled out for special reprobration, and because he felt justified in following the common practice of his contemporaries should he be held capable of perpetrating a dastardly act of literary villany?
Wm Tidd Matson
In the letter referred to above of June 26th, 1890, Mr Brooke went out of his way to cast aspersions on Logan. He termed him "untrustworthy, untrusted, disliked, false alike to his Church and Master," and he assumed to point a contrast between the close of his life and the happy death of Bruce. There is not a word of truth in the whole description.
1st. - To say that he was untrustworthy is to beg the question.
2nd. - "Untrusted," is false on Mr Brooke's own showing, who admits that he was trusted by old Bruce with his son's manuscript; Dr Blair trusted him, for he recommended him to a tutorship; Warren Hastings trusted him, for he employed him to write his defence.
3rd. - "Disliked," not by his fellow students of whom he was the idol; not by Michael Bruce who loved him as his bosom friend; not by Dr Robertson who was through life his steady friend, and who gave practical proof of his friendship for him, by editing his posthumous works.
4th. - "False to his Church and Master," why? Because he wrote a beautiful Drama for which his narrow-minded parishioners hounded him from his charge.
As it regards the close of his life, his biographer tells us "his end was truly Christian, he employed his time in hearing young persons who visited him read the scriptures; his conversation turned strictly on serious subjects, and was most affecting and instructive." So much for Mr. W.T.Brooke!
This work, for all its value, is not to be depended on for faultless accuracy. For instance, Mr Julian has fathered on me a Children's Anniversary Hymn, "Glory to God in the highest, Shall be our song to day," of which I have no ambition to claim the authorship. My own hymn, "Glory, glory to God in the highest, Angels on chorus joyfully cry," (written to be sung to Schubert's grand music), is a very different composition.
[editorial note:]
The attribution of which Tidd Matson. complained occurred in Appendix II of Julian's Dictionary, p.1579, where the hymn is added to those listed under Matson's entry in the main section, and mentioned as being in the Scottish Hymnal, 1884. There is a minor puzzle over dates here, since the Appendices to Julian's first edition were apparently not added until 1902; Matson died in 1899 and his pamphlet containing the complaint was published in 1892.The mis-attribution was corrected in a further note under Matson's name in Julian's New Supplement, included in the Second Edition of 1907 (p.1670).
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