'The Cottagers of Glenburnie' (1808) by Elizabeth Hamilton

Elizabeth Hamilton (1756-1816) was born in Belfast to a Scottish merchant and an Irish mother. Her father died while she was still a baby and she was sent to live with her aunt and uncle who owned a farm near Stirling. Attending a day school from the age of eight, her formal education finished in her early teens. She was a voracious reader, particularly of moral and educational philosophy.

She lived in London for a time and later in Edinburgh. In 1804, she was awarded a pension from King George III for her contribution to religion and virtue. She became a well-known and respected author, her portrait being painted by Sir Henry Raeburn. She died in Harrogate in 1816.

     

First edition - Manners and Miller 1808

Hamilton's novel, The Cottagers of Glenburnie, tells the story of a retired servant, Mrs Mason, who returns to Scotland in 1788 to stay with Mr Stewart of Gowan-brae and his two daughters, Bell and Mary. The first five chapters (to page 115) mainly consist of Mason telling her hosts the story of her life. The reader quickly understands why the author was given an award for promulgating religion and virtue. She responds to Mary Stewart's wish for a friend like her: And have you not a friend, a guide, and a supporter, in Him who called you to these trials of your virtue? Consider my dear young lady, it is your Heavenly Father who has set the task, - perform it as unto Him, and when you have to encounter opposition, or injustice, you will no longer find them intolerable.  Two pages on, she is in full flow: My mother taught me the only true road to obedience, in the love and fear of  God... Throughout the book Mrs Mason dispenses such bon mots and many who met her, let alone the 'modern' reader, would probably find her intolerable! She may have come up against other, more worldly - and unpleasant - servants and demanding mistresses, but she always won through. One feels that when Mrs Mason approached the Pearly Gates, she would be moved to the front of the queue.

The reader arrives at the village of Glenburnie, with Mr Stewart and Mrs Mason, on page 132. She is to lodge with her cousin Mrs MacClarty and her unruly family. The motto for this farmer's wife, in fact most of the village, is cou'dn be fashed. The standard of the MacClarty house and garden is appalling - dirty and unhygienic. The elder MacClarty daughter was morose and sullen, the younger stupid and insensible. Their usual answer is: I'll no be at the fash...

Mrs MacClarty and her daughters

There is a humorous description of Mrs Mason's room and, particularly, her bed: her pillow was full of new but still damp feathers, which were consequently full of the animal oil, which, when it becomes rancid, sends forth an intolerable effluvia. Mrs Mason tries, unsuccessfully to persuade the mother that discipline and correction leads to positive results. but perhaps I interfere too far. Well, yes! She tries again: believe me, cousin, habits of neatness, and of activity, and of attention, have a greater effect upon the temper and disposition than most people are aware of. Later she says to herself: Surely I must be of some use to the children of these good people. They are ill brought up, but they do not seem deficient in understanding; and if I can once convince them of the advantage they will derive from listening to my advice, I may make a lasting impression on the minds. Not on the MacClarty family, even with the tragic death of the farmer. Hoots, says Mrs MacCarty, my bairns are just like other people... Moreover, the goodwife has a point when she says: Ilka place has just its ain gait and ye needna think that ever we'll learn yours. And indeed to be plain wi' you, cusin, I think you have our many fykes (fussing over trifles). It's no good Mrs Mason rejoining, this fear of being fashed is the great bar to all improvement.

 Interspersed throughout the tale are paeons to the good Lord and his beneficence: Let the poor then praise Thee...let the lowly in heart rejoice in thy salvation, and so on. Chapter XVII has a particularly over-the-top purple passage about the Almighty, which occurs when Mrs Mason returns to Glenburnie: Yes, all the works of God are good and beautiful: all the designs on Providence must terminate in producing happiness and joy.  Well not for the MacClarty family or for Methodists. She castigates the latter as enthusiasts who persuade converts that a state of grace is enough, giving as an example another servant, Sally, whose divine raptures were quoted by some of these pious visionaries, as a proof of saintship.(pp. 103-4). In this, later Chapter, she returns to the charge: I have seen so much malignity, so much self-conceit, and presumption, among these professors of evangelical righteousness, that I should suppose their doctrines were at war with the pure morality of the Gospel...I am convinced that much might have been done to stop the progress of methodism, by setting forth, in strong and lively terms, the sin and danger of exalting any one point of the christian doctrine, so as to make it pre-eminent, to the disparagement of the other Gospel truths, and to the exclusion of the gospel virtues. She sees Methodist zeal in making converts as based on pride.

Hamilton had already written Letters on Education (1801) and Letters on the Elementary Principles of Education (1801), and running through her novel is the vital importance of a good education (not just in the three R's and crafts but in sound morals and correct worship of God). This reaches its height in the penultimate Chapter XVIII, Hints concerning the Duties of a Schoolmaster. They are more than just Hints! Between Mr Gourlay, the local Minister, and Mr Morison, appointed schoolmaster of Glenburnie on Mrs Mason's advice, the school becomes a magnet for parents far and wide. With the additional (financial) support of Mr and Mary Stewart and young Lord Longlands (whom Mrs Mason had saved from a fire as a three year-old), the buildings and surroundings are totally reconstituted and the boys and girls, after some struggles, transformed into model pupils. Mr Morison's first object being to train his pupils to habits of order and subordination, not by means of terror, but by a firmness which is not incompatible with kindness and affection. Mrs Mason eventually retires from supervising the girls, taking possession of a pretty cottage on Lord Longlands' estate. In that sweet retreat she tranquilly spent the last days of a useful life... Hear! Hear! 

PS: I liked the reference to Glasgow: Glenburnie women exclaim Glasgow, by a' accounts, is an unco place for wuckedness: but than wha can wonder, whar there's sae mony factories.

Ian Campbell is not kind to Hamilton or to her creation Mrs Mason: an instrument of didactic instruction dull beyond words, insensitive to her environment, and incapable of doing more than transmitting received ideas to her pupils. Campbell regards Hamilton's picture of Scotland as crude and static and compares her unfavourably with Sir Walter Scott and John Galt.