A Rich Man - John Galt

In 1925 William Roughead (1870-1952) issued an edition of A Rich Man and Other Stories by John Galt.  It was published by T N Foulis Ltd of Edinburgh and London.  The book contains three works by Galt which had previously been serialised in various publications. 

John Galt

The volume contains the following tales by John Galt -A Rich Man; or He Has Great Merit described as being the Autobiography of Archibald Plack Esq, Late Lord Mayor of London in a series of letters to his grandson, the Honourable George Spend.  First published in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine in 1836.  A review of Roughead’s edition in the Edinburgh Evening News on 4 November 1925 describes  the story - “with pawky humour, Galt traces the meteoric career of a penniless Scot in London.” 

From Edinburgh Evening News 1925

The second work is The Tribulations of the Rev Cowal Kilmun which was also first published in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine from November 1835 until January 1836.  Roughead describes Kilmun as – “a simple, kindly childlike soul, whose knowledge of human nature and acquaintance with life are bounded by the narrow confines of his rural charge.”  He compares him with Rev Balwhidder from Galt’s Annals of the Parish.

The third tale is My Landlady and Her Lodgers which was published in Blackwoods Magazine between August and November 1829.  In a letter to Blackwood, Galt describes the work - “It embraces something of satirical remark on London.” 

Roughead’s edition also comes with a glossary of Scots words which the Edinburgh Evening News review notes – “It will doubtless be in much use, as Galt often uses the Scots vernacular.  It is most interesting to study the quaint old words.”  It certainly is a useful addition.

Advertisement for Tait's Edinburgh Magazine 1835

Two of these three works were written after John Galt had returned to Greenock in 1834 and just a few years before his death.  In the book, Roughead also includes a sample of Galt’s handwritten manuscript of A Rich Man.  He writes of the pages of the manuscript – “They are entirely and throughout in Galt’s running script, which shows that he wrote the story with his own hand, before he was disabled by the paralysis that compelled him to dictate all his later work.”

The book also contains two pictures of John Galt.  Roughead dedicated the book to J M Barrie (1860-1837), the author best known as the creator of Peter Pan.  William Roughead was a lawyer and is thought of as a pioneer of true crime fiction.  There is an excellent article about the writer on the WS Society, at The Signet Library, Edinburgh - click on blue link to be taken to site.

John Galt's edition of Graydon's Memoirs 1822

John Galt edited Alexander Graydon’s Memoirs of a Life Chiefly Passed in Pennsylvania Within the Last Sixty Years.  which was published in January 1822 in Edinburgh by William Blackwood.  It had first been published in America and was a memoir by Alexander Graydon (1752-1818), an American writer who had fought against Britain during the American Revolution.  Graydon wrote mostly about his life and experiences, and his work was published in many journals of the time.

Galt’s edition received a very unfavourable review by the Quarterly Review (also known as the London Quarterly Review) which had previously given extremely negative comments of John Galt’s own work.  John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), at one time editor of the Quarterly Review was particularly known for slating Galt and his writing.  The review for the Memoirs reads - 

“He [Galt] now appears as the editor and eulogist of these Memoirs, which – not withstanding his high and solemn praise, both of their matter and manner – we venture to pronounce to be in matter almost worthless, and in manner wholly contemptible.  We scarcely remember to have met with an emptier pretender to literature, or a grosser apostate in politics.”

The writer goes on –

“We can honestly assure Mr Galt – without overrating his talents and taste in the least – that he is himself capable of adding a thousand times more lustre to the English language than the author of such an absurd farrago as he has here thought proper to reprint.”

Galt had a keen interest in America.  During the time he worked both in Greenock Custom House and for local firms Miller & Co and Robert Ewing, he would have been aware of how the relationship between the two countries could affect trade.  In 1820 he worked for claimants seeking compensation for losses they had sustained during the British/American War of 1812-1815.  He dedicated his edition of Graydon’s book to Richard Rush (1780-1859) who was the American Ambassador to Britain from 1818 to 1825.

Richard Rush - American Ambassador in Britain

In his dedication, Galt writes – 

“It is remarkable that a production so rich in the various excellencies of style, description, and impartiality, should not have been known to the collectors of American books in this country, especially as it is perhaps the best personal narrative which has yet appeared relative to the history of that great conflict which terminated in establishing the independence of the United States.”

Galt's books - "the Larger Catechism of the Scottish language"

In John Galt's novel the Annals of the Parish - (p10, Year 1760), Thomas Thorl speaks to the Rev Micha Balwhidder -  

“Come in, sir, and ease yoursel’: this will never do: the clergy are God’s gorbies, and for their Master’s sake it behoves us to respect them.  There was no ane in the whole parish mair against you than mysel’; but this early visitation is a symptom of grace that I couldna have expectit from a bird out of the nest of patronage.”

The language used is everyday speech for Thorl. In the 1895 Blackwoods Edition of the Annals of the Parish, edited by David Storrar Meldrum, the author Samuel Rutherford Crockett (1859-1914) in his introduction, compares Galt's use of language with that of the Bard –

“Practically he [Galt] writes the Scots of Robert Burns.  His vocabulary is not so extensive, his adjectives scantly so trenchant.  He is by no means so “free in his discourse” as the poet.  But they are essentially shoots of the same stem.  They learned, as it were, at one parent’s knee.”

Crockett continues, comparing Galt's use of Scots with that of the Scottish authors Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) and Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) - 

"Galt’s variety of his Scottish tongue is full of fine old grandmotherly words, marrow with pith and sap.  Scott, like Stevenson, wrote his vernacular a little from the heights.  But Galt writes his Scots like one who has been cradled in it, who lisped it in the doorways and cried it to other loons across the street.  He lived among men and women who habitually spoke it.”

Another great example of the speech of Galt's ordinary, everyday folk can be found in The Entail (p120) when the Leddy speaks to Jamie Walkinshaw - 

“Haud your tongue, and dinna terrify folk wi’ ony sic impossibility!” exclaimed the Leddy – “Poor man, he has something else to think o’ at present.  Is no your aunty brought nigh unto the gates o’ death?  Would ye expek him to be thinking o’ marriage settlements and wedding banquets, when death’s so busy in his dwelling?  Ye’re an unfeeling creature, Jamie.  But the army’s the best place for sic graceless getts."

Crockett remarks on Galt's use of Scots - 

“Galt spares no pains to introduce every old and recondite Scots word he knows.  His books are, indeed, the Larger Catechism of the Scottish language, in so far that they are by no means written for those of weaker understanding.”

The language used by Galt in many of his works will be very familiar to a lot of Scottish people.  It makes his characters come to life and become more real - just by the way they use everyday language of their time and place.

A Provost in poor clothing

“I have complained to you before of the shabby appearance of my things.”

This is a quote from a letter John Galt wrote to William Blackwood from London on 18 May 1822.  He was complaining about the quality of the edition of his novel The Provost which had just been issued by Blackwood.

Galt's main concern was the quality of the paper on which the book had been printed and he goes on to tell Blackwood that he is sending part of The Steamboat and makes a suggestion about its printing –

“I hope you will not grudge to give it better paper, for I am mortified to see The Provost in such poor clothing compared with Pen Owen.”

William Blackwood, Publisher

Quite an indignant response from John Galt in comparing the quality of paper of his own novel with that of another novel published by Blackwood the same year – Pen Owen.  Pen Owen is thought to have been written by either James or Theodore Hook, the sons of composer James Hook (1746-1827),  

Blackwood's edition of The Provost by John Galt

Read more about John Galt's novel The Provost and a real life Provost of Irvine here.

(Provost in Scotland is the equivalent of a Mayor.)

Ouranoulogos – John Galt’s “complete failure”!

It is not often that people own up to their failures!  In his Literary Life (Volume I) John Galt writes of his work Ouranoulogos - 

“But although the work was brought out at less than a fourth of the price at which it should have been published, and was greatly admired by everyone who saw it, it fell literally still-born from the press;  A more complete failure, indeed, I never heard of.”

The Ouranoulogos or The Celestial Volume, was a work written by John Galt in 1833 and published by Cadel in London and Blackwood in Edinburgh.  As the advertisement for the work shows, Ouranoulogos was meant to be the first of twelve instalments and Galt was fortunate to have the artist John Martin, provide an illustration for the first volume.

Ouranoulogos by John Martin

In a letter to William Blackwood written in March 1833 Galt writes – 

“I hear you are to be in town about the end of the month but in the mean time I write to say that I have seen Mr Cadell respecting a joint publication projected by me and Mr Martin (Balshazzar) and I propose to him to be my publisher with you; to which he readily acceded and I write this in consequence.”

John Martin, artist

Galt, continues -

“The work is to be in royal quatro and to consist of a picture by Martin and an illustrative tale by me with an extract from the original work that has suggested it.  It is to be executed in the very first style that the arts allow here and to come out in numbers.  We expect it will form an era in the arts as the drawing and engraving are to be executed simultaneously and the printing to be as elegant as can be produced.”

John Martin (1789-1854) was an English painter, engraver and illustrator known for his large, dramatic works, many of biblical scenes.  His works became very popular especially “Belshazzar’s Feast” of 1820 to which John Galt alludes in his letter to Blackwood.  John Martin illustrated scenes from many novels and was also an engineer and inventor.  The illustration for Ouranoulogos was later expanded by Martin into a work now owned by the Royal Collection Trust entitled The Eve of the Deluge. 

"Eve of the Deluge" by John Martin - source

Galt explains his lofty idea for Ouranoulogos in Literary Life -

“I really designed, and in part executed, a solemn abstract work of the Miltonic kind, a natural effect, as I believe it to be, of the comparative solitude to which I was consigned.  I allude to the Ouranoulogos, of which one number was published, illustrated with a picture, a rare and recently invented species of engraving, in which Mr Martin displayed all his singular power.”

Ouranoulogos is the story of the Biblical flood and Noah's Ark -

"Forty days and forty nights the rain fell as a curtain – the hills were drowned, the windows of Heaven were opened, and the angels contemplated the retiring Austerity of the Lord.  All around was the loneliness of death, and as the rimless vast of the premundane." (John Galt, Ouranoulogos)

Galt also quotes from the work by Arthur Golding (1536-1606) the translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses of 1603 - 

“Th’ outrageous swelling of the sea

The lesser hillocks drown;

Unwounted waves on highest tops

Of mountains did rebound.

 

The greatest part of men were drownde;

And such as scapt the flood,

Forlorne with fasting overlong,

Did die for want of food.”

In 1833 John Galt had become increasingly unwell and short of money.  At the time, he and his wife, Elizabeth were living at Barn Cottage, Old Brompton in London.  While admitting Ouranoulogos was a failure, he reasoned that -

 “A more complete failure, indeed, I never heard of; and it can only be accounted for by supposing, astrologically, that the disaster which withered my limbs, extended to my fortunes.  As yet, to be sure, I am not very sensible that it has affected my head, but it will do so, no doubt, by and by.”

Galt ends this rather sombre chain of thought with the words – 

“The hours that are rung on a doctor’s bottle, are not so salutary as those which are chimed by the village clock.”  (Literary Life Volume I.)

Met in a foreign country - Galt and Byron

Lord Byron (1788-1824) wrote a fascinating little final paragraph in a letter he had written to John Galt dated 11 December 1813, the letter, addressed to "My Dear Galt" ends -

"I don’t know how other men feel towards those they have met abroad, but to me there seems a kind of tie established between all who have met together in a foreign country, as if we had met in a state of pre-existence, and were talking over a life that had ceased.  But I always look forward to renewing my travels; and though you, I think, are now stationary, if I can at all forward your pursuits there as well as here, I shall be truly glad in the opportunity. Ever yours very sincerely, B"

Lord Byron

Galt met Lord Byron in Gibraltar in 1809 and later in Athens.  They travelled together for a short while before Galt returned to Britain and they continued their acquaintance in London in 1811.  Galt sent this letter to Blackwood for publication in 1823 when he was living at Eskgrove near Musselburgh.  His cover letter to Blackwood reads -

“My Dear Sir – Among a number of letters which I have been lately looking over from Lord Byron, the enclosed, I think, may be published without violating the proprieties of private life, or betraying the confidence of friendship.”

The main business of the letter itself was in connection with Byron's The Bride of Abydos written 1813.  Later, John Galt wrote a biography of Byron The Life of Lord Byron which was published in 1830.  Byron, like Galt was also a great friend of the Countess of Blessington.

The Life of Lord Byron by John Galt is available to read free online.

How the Ettrick Shepherd described John Galt

While portraits can give us a good idea of what a person looked like, it is just as interesting to read other people's thoughts on the looks and personality traits of the subject.  The poet James Hogg (1770-1835) who was known as the Ettrick Shepherd met John Galt in Greenock in 1804 when Galt would have been 25 years old.

Hogg describes being invited to supper at the Tontine Hotel in Greenock where he found – “no fewer than thirty gentlemen assembled to welcome us, and among the rest was Mr Galt, then a tall thin young man, with something a little dandyish in his appearance.  He was dressed in a frock-coat and new top-boots; and it being then the fashion to wear the shirt collars as high as the eyes, Galt wore his the whole of that night with the one side considerable above his ear, and the other flapped over the collar of his frock-coat down to his shoulder.”

Hogg points out what he views as one of Galt’s “peculiarities” – “He walked with his spectacles on, and conversed with them on; but when he read he took them off.  In short, from his first appearance, one would scarcely have guessed him to be a man of genius.”

James Hogg had worked as a shepherd in Ettrick in the Scottish Borders in his youth and was self educated.  He composed songs and poems and admired the work of Robert Burns.  He published a small collection of his work, Scottish Pastorals in 1801 and came to the attention of Walter Scott.  In 1807 he published The Mountain Bard and in 1810 moved to Edinburgh and continued his writing career, meeting many of the great writers and poets of the day and contributing to Blackwood's Magazine.  (John Galt also contributed to Blackwood's "Maga".)  Hogg's best known work, published in 1824 was the novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

James Hogg (the Ettrick Shepherd)

This is a verse by Hogg entitled Caledonia -

“Old Caledonia! pathway of the storm

That o’er thy wilds resistless sweeps along,

Though clouds and snows thy sterile hills deform,

Thou are the land of freedom and of song.

Land of the eagle fancy, wild and strong!

Land of the loyal heart and valiant arm!

Though southern pride and luxury may wrong

Thy mountain honours, still my heart shall warm

At thy unquestioned weir and songs of magic charm.”

James Hogg also writes about his thoughts on the works of John Galt - “I like Galt’s writings exceedingly, and have always regretted that he has depicted so much that is selfish and cunning in the Scottish character, and so little that is truly amiable, when he could have done it so well.”

It would be interesting to know Galt's thoughts on those remarks!