Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847

    W. E. A.

SCOTTISH MELODIES. BY DELTA

THE MAID OF ULVA

The hyacinth bathed in the beauty of spring,
The raven when autumn hath darken'd his wing,
Were bluest and blackest, if either could vie
With the night of thy hair, or the morn of thine eye,—

Fair maid of the mountain, whose home, far away,
Looks down on the islands of Ulva's blue bay;
May nought from its Eden thy footsteps allure,
To grieve what is happy, or dim what is pure!

Between us a foam-sheet impassable flows—
The wrath and the hatred of clans who are foes;
But love, like the oak, while the tempest it braves,
The firmer will root it, the fiercer it raves.

Not seldom thine eye from the watch-tower shall hail,
In the red of the sunrise the gleam of my sail,
And lone is the valley, and thick is the grove,
And green is the bower, that is sacred to love!

The snows shall turn black on high Cruachan Ben,
And the heath cease to purple fair Sonachan glen,
And the breakers to foam, as they dash on Tiree,
When the heart in this bosom beats faithless to thee!

LAMENT FOR MACRIMMON

Mist wreathes stern Coolin like a cloud,
The water-wraith is shrieking loud,
And blue eyes gush with tears that burn,
For thee—who shall no more return!
Macrimmon shall no more return,
Oh never, never more return!
Earth, wrapt in doomsday flames, shall burn,
Before Macrimmon home return!

The wild winds wail themselves asleep,
The rills drop tear-like down the steep,
In forest glooms the songsters mourn,
For thee—who shall no more return!
Macrimmon shall no more return, &c.

Even hoar old Ocean joins our wail,
Nor moves the boat, though bent with sail;
Fierce shrieking gales the breakers churn,
For thee—who shall no more return!
Macrimmon shall no more return, &c.

No more, at eve, thy harp in hall
Shall from the tower faint echoes call;
There songless circles vainly mourn
For thee—who shall no more return!
Macrimmon shall no more return, &c.

Thou shalt return not from afar
With wreaths of peace, or spoils of war;
Each breast is but affection's urn
For thee—who shall no more return!
Macrimmon shall no more return,
Oh never, never more return!
Earth, wrapt in doomsday flames, shall burn,
Before Macrimmon home return!

THE SCOTCH MARRIAGE BILL

We trust we have no blind or bigoted admiration of our native institutions, and we willingly allow that the marriage law of Scotland is not incapable of amendment. Any measure, therefore, professing to have that object, would receive our attentive consideration; but we should expect it to be framed with a care and caution corresponding to the grave importance of the social relations which are to be affected, and in a spirit congenial to the deep moral and religious convictions which have always been cherished among our countrymen, and which, on this subject above all others, it is important to preserve unimpaired.

The Bill recently introduced into Parliament "to amend the law of Scotland affecting the constitution of marriage," appears to us not to possess the recommendations which we think essential to such an attempt. We consider it, though well intended, to proceed on a partial and imperfect view of the subject, and to threaten us with the introduction of greater evils than those which it professes to remedy. We regard it as calculated to destroy or deaden the sacred character of the conjugal union, and to diminish the solemnity of its obligations; to give new and dangerous encouragements to precipitate and improper connections; and, more especially as regards young persons, to create formidable temptations to imprudence or immorality, and fatal facilities to the designs of adventurers who may seek by marriage to obtain wealth or advancement.

As the Bill is short, we shall insert it as the text of our observations:

"A BILL to amend the Law of Scotland affecting the Constitution of Marriage.

"Whereas it is expedient that the law of marriage in Scotland should be amended as far as the same affects the constitution of marriage in that country; be it enacted, by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that from and after the last day of March, One thousand eight hundred and Forty-eight, excepting as hereinafter excepted and provided, no marriage to be contracted in Scotland shall be valid or effectual unless it shall be registered by the parties contracting the same, in terms of an act passed in the present session of Parliament, intituled, "An Act for registering births, deaths and marriages in Scotland," by the said parties appearing in presence of the registrar, and then and there signing before witnesses the entry of their marriage in the register, and having the same otherwise registered in the manner provided by the said act, in the case of the registration of marriages by the parties themselves contracting marriage; upon which registration only the marriage shall be held to be contracted or valid or effectual to any effect or purpose whatever; and it is hereby declared that such registration shall of itself constitute marriage, and such parties shall thereafter be held and deemed to be married parties to all effects and purposes whatever.

"Provided always, and be it enacted, that nothing herein contained shall affect or be held or construed to affect the validity of any marriage where the marriage has been solemnised in presence of a clergyman, or of a party professing to be acting as, and believed to be a clergyman, or, in the case of Jews, has been solemnised according to the rites observed by persons professing the Jewish religion, or, in the case of Quakers, according to the rites or form observed by persons belonging to the Society of Friends commonly called Quakers.

"And be it enacted, that the word 'clergyman' shall include all clergymen or ministers of religion authorised to solemnise marriage, whether belonging to the established church, or to any other church, or to any sect or persuasion by whatever name or denomination known.

"And be it enacted, that this act may be amended or repealed by any act to be passed during the present session of Parliament."

The operation of this Bill, it will be seen, depends so far on the machinery provided by another Bill which is also now before Parliament, "for registering births, deaths, and marriages, in Scotland." Into the details of that Bill, it is unnecessary here to enter; find we shall only mention that it provides for the establishment of resident officers in various districts and subdistricts in Scotland, who are to keep a book for the formal registration of the events specified in the title of the Bill. We are no enemies of a judicious system of registration, though we do not approve of all the enactments of the Bill in question, and we think that they will require special and close examination before they shall be sanctioned by the Legislature. But we shall merely insert at present the clause that seems most material for discussing the merits of the Marriage Bill.

"And be it enacted, that in all cases of marriage contracted in Scotland from and after the last day of December one thousand eight hundred and forty-seven, the persons contracting such marriage, at the time of the contraction thereof, or within two months thereafter, shall sign along with two witnesses, in the presence of the registrar, the entry of such marriage in the register-book to be kept by the registrar, and the registrar shall make such entry according to the form of Schedule (C.) hereunto annexed; and if the person so contracting marriage, together with two witnesses as aforesaid, shall, within ten days thereafter, attend upon the registrar for the purpose of signing the entry in the register, the registrar shall for such entry be entitled to a fee of five shillings; and if such persons shall so attend after ten days and within two months of contracting the marriage, the registrar shall be entitled to a fee of ten shillings, or it shall be competent to the persons so contracting marriage to require the registrar of the subdistrict within which such marriage has been contracted to attend at the contraction, or within two months thereafter, at any place within such subdistrict; and such registrar is hereby required, upon a written notice of forty-eight hours given to him to that effect, to attend with the register-book accordingly, and to make the proper entry therein, and for such attendance and entry, if at the contraction or within ten days of the contraction of such marriage, the registrar shall be entitled to a fee of one guinea, besides the sum of sixpence for each mile which such registrar shall be obliged to travel in going from his place of abode to the place of such marriage; and if such attendance shall be required after ten days but within two months of the contraction of such marriage, the registrar shall for such attendance and entry be entitled to a fee of two guineas, besides the sum of sixpence for each mile which such registrar shall be obliged to travel as aforesaid; and any person contracting marriage and failing to register the same, and sign the entry thereof in manner herein prescribed during the period of two months thereafter, shall be liable in a penalty of fifty pounds, and in default of payment thereof to suffer imprisonment for one month."

We cannot help thinking that the Registration Bill, from which we have just quoted, has been framed without any view to the purpose which its machinery is to serve under the Marriage Bill, of not merely registering a marriage otherwise constituted, but also of actually constituting the marriage that is to be registered. There is a gap apparently left between the two Bills, and at least there is something that appears very blank and meagre in the provision made for extra-ecclesiastical marriages to be contracted in the registrar's presence. We presume that this officer is not to judge what ceremony or declaration shall constitute a marriage; if he were to do so new difficulties would arise: but we take it for granted that if asked by the contracting parties to register them as married persons, the registrar must immediately obey, when the entry will of itself marry them, whether they were married or not before.

There is certainly something startling in a system of registration which does not precisely settle the antecedent matter on which it is to act; and it is still more singular to consider mere registration as constituting in itself the very thing that is to be registered. But it seems to be so written in the Bill before us.

Various other observations will occur as to the imperfect structure of the two Acts thus taken in connexion; but we pass over these minor matters to point out the characteristic principles of this measure, and the consequences which we think it involves.

It will be seen, first, that it declares marriage to be constituted by mere registration to all effects and purposes, so that two parties thus entered in the register, are conclusively and irrevocably united by that simple fact. Second, that it professes no preference, and shows no favour for ecclesiastical marriages over those constituted by simple contract or mere registration, the old-fashioned mode of solemnising, them by a clergyman being merely saved from abolition, but shorn of all its privileges, and left, as it were, to die out in due time. Third, that in registration marriages, no proclamation of banns is required, and no notice of any kind is given to the public, nor any interval for deliberation forced upon the parties. Fourth, that no locality is assigned within which the parties may thus marry by registration, it being competent apparently to carry out the arrangement in any district however distant from their ordinary abode, by requiring, in a somewhat Irish fashion, "the registrar of the subdistrict within which such marriage has been contracted to attend at the contraction."

Now we think it can require little argument to show that a system of this kind, introduced as the basis of the marriage law of the land, is, as has been predicted, much more likely to prove a bane than a blessing. Marriage is undoubtedly a civil contract, but in all enlightened Christian countries it has been looked upon as a solemn engagement, over which the church ought to preside, in order duly to impress the contracting parties with the religious origin from which it sprung, with the religious duties which it involves, and with the religious sanctions by which those duties are guarded. Considered as the foundation of society itself, as the source of all pure and kindly affections, as the introduction to the parental as well as to the conjugal relation, it is impossible that it can be lightly treated or hurried over as a matter of mere routine or ordinary business, without lowering its character, and weakening its obligations, and relaxing generally the moral tone of the community.