PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON SEOMEN.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 1914, 13 February 1885, Page 2

PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON SEOMEN.

An amusing, speech on Scotjihmen was , delivered by professor Blackie.sit-.the din- | nerof the St, Andrew Society, of. Man- . Chester. He said that he had looked up S information about St. Andrew. .'„ There s was not much to know, but jnthedilth ;• chapter pf'thd 3rd. Book' of "E'uj)biu|j' ; Ecclesiastical History, he found, S,t, t Andrew converted the Scythians, Soyjjh, . Scuith, Scot were exactly the same words, . [Laughter.] St, Andrew therefore ..was , the converter of the Scuits or Scots in . that part of the world, [Laughter,] The Scots in all old historical bnoksWere' ; Celts, not Saxons, therefore St, Andrew I must have known Gaelic, and preached in that language. [Laughter,] He (the'Prp. r feasor) held that to bo more certain than what a modern poet had said, that Adam ; and Eve were married in Gaelic by the ■ Prayer Book, which was divinely instituted at that time. [Loud laughter,] Theu . next thing he learned about St, Andrew , was that he converted the people k>m ■' feeding upon human flesh—[laughWfor ever since the Scottish people haOed upon animal food chiefly in the glorious , and divine form of haggis. [Renewed laughter] As to the Scotch .being essentially a Celt, no doubt there.might;be more Scotch or Saxton than Celticliio'od ; but he maintained that the...;virtue>':all came from the Celts and- not from'"'the Saxtons. Whentheykindleda fire they not only put the coal and the woodj but bring a spark, and then set it all aflame. Tho Are, the inspiration, the genius of the Scottish people. came from the Celtic, element, (Laughter,] The Scqtcipvere per, fectly willing'tcj allow tha? perhapjj '"sijj finest type—the most aristocratic typethat ever walked on the globVwas the firstrate Englishman; butull Englishmen were not first' rate, perhaps only very; few (Laughter.)- Taking' 'the world■ pyejyKe, Soqtchman wa's thfc s'uperig); ahimai;,. If h'eha'dleps pf the dignify*; heiiad jriora force, and the fire, aid. 'working powe'j;. andthiswasawprkirig wprld,' Jle-Wa strong {egling on jjhis subject, b'pcausj tliepe was' a great deal' of going en, especially : in' Pn.burgh, Glasgow was held, to be a more ScotyißhJrv' town than Edinburgh, Against,rijkjs Anglication ho should protest to the jjp. Little Scotland would not bend the ¥jipp to bjg England becauso it was. 'big, [Laughter and gheers.J "He apprpv'p'd pf thcprpppsal to erept a statpe of _Burps in Manchester, Burn's mission, was' to put the poetry of Scotland into the highest place in the lyrical poetry of the world, Scotchmen owed him a debt of gratitude, He would not subscribe to a monument to Lord Bryon, who was a brilliant blackguard, that was all, [Laughter,]