The Antiquary | Page 2

productions of fancy, though possessing some resemblance to real
individuals. Yet I must own my attempts have not in this last particular
been uniformly successful. There are men whose characters are so
peculiarly marked, that the delineation of some leading and principal
feature, inevitably places the whole person before you in his
individuality. Thus the character of Jonathan Oldbuck in the Antiquary,
was partly founded on that of an old friend of my youth, to whom I am

indebted for introducing me to Shakspeare, and other invaluable
favours; but I thought I had so completely disguised the likeness, that it
could not be recognised by any one now alive. I was mistaken, however,
and indeed had endangered what I desired should be considered as a
secret; for I afterwards learned that a highly respectable gentleman, one
of the few surviving friends of my father, and an acute critic, had said,
upon the appearance of the work, that he was now convinced who was
the author of it, as he recognised, in the Antiquary, traces of the
character of a very intimate friend* of my father's family."
* [The late George Constable of Wallace Craigie, near Dundee.]
I have only farther to request the reader not to suppose that my late
respected friend resembled Mr. Oldbuck, either in his pedigree, or the
history imputed to the ideal personage. There is not a single incident in
the Novel which is borrowed from his real circumstances, excepting the
fact that he resided in an old house near a flourishing seaport, and that
the author chanced to witness a scene betwixt him and the female
proprietor of a stage-coach, very similar to that which commences the
history of the Antiquary. An excellent temper, with a slight degree of
subacid humour; learning, wit, and drollery, the more poignant that
they were a little marked by the peculiarities of an old bachelor; a
soundness of thought, rendered more forcible by an occasional
quaintness of expression, were, the author conceives, the only qualities
in which the creature of his imagination resembled his benevolent and
excellent old friend.
The prominent part performed by the Beggar in the following narrative,
induces the author to prefix a few remarks of that character, as it
formerly existed in Scotland, though it is now scarcely to be traced.
Many of the old Scottish mendicants were by no means to be
confounded with the utterly degraded class of beings who now practise
that wandering trade. Such of them as were in the habit of travelling
through a particular district, were usually well received both in the
farmer's ha', and in the kitchens of the country gentlemen. Martin,
author of the _Reliquiae Divi Sancti Andreae,_ written in 1683, gives
the following account of one class of this order of men in the
seventeenth century, in terms which would induce an antiquary like Mr.
Oldbuck to regret its extinction. He conceives them to be descended
from the ancient bards, and proceeds:---"They are called by others, and

by themselves, Jockies, who go about begging; and use still to recite
the Sloggorne (gathering-words or war-cries) of most of the true
ancient surnames of Scotland, from old experience and observation.
Some of them I have discoursed, and found to have reason and
discretion. One of then told me there were not now above twelve of
them in the whole isle; but he remembered when they abounded, so as
at one time he was one of five that usually met at St. Andrews."
The race of Jockies (of the above description) has, I suppose, been long
extinct in Scotland; but the old remembered beggar, even in my own
time, like the Baccoch, or travelling cripple of Ireland, was expected to
merit his quarters by something beyond an exposition of his distresses.
He was often a talkative, facetious fellow, prompt at repartee, and not
withheld from exercising his powers that way by any respect of persons,
his patched cloak giving him the privilege of the ancient jester. To be a
_gude crack,_ that is, to possess talents for conversation, was essential
to the trade of a "puir body" of the more esteemed class; and Burns,
who delighted in the amusement their discourse afforded, seems to
have looked forward with gloomy firmness to the possibility of himself
becoming one day or other a member of their itinerant society. In his
poetical works, it is alluded to so often, as perhaps to indicate that he
considered the consummation as not utterly impossible. Thus in the
fine dedication of his works to Gavin Hamilton, he says,---
And when I downa yoke a naig, Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg.
Again, in his Epistle to Davie, a brother Poet, he states, that in their
closing career---
The last o't, the warst o't, Is only just