Long With This Whistle

In 1897 (Burns and His Times), J.O. Mitchell, LL.D., wisely noted, “I cannot recall any allusion by Burns to water as a drink …” Milk is mentioned only in connection with porridge, tea as a cause of war, a source of taxation, and as a beverage for “leddies.” Coffee and chocolate were around but not common enough to merit a poet’s attention. “Of strong drink,” however, “we have more than enough.”

Port receives modest attention, and brandy (which “Twins monie a poor, doylt, drucken hash/O’ half his days”) does not stand the patriotism test, as the drinking of it sends “auld Scotland’s cash” to its worst enemies. Claret features as the weapon of choice in the battle for ‘The Whistle,’ a real-life bacchanalian contest between Captain Riddle, Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxweltown, and Mr. Ferguson of Craigdarroch for possession of an ebony whistle brought to Scotland from Denmark specifically, it seems, as a trophy for drinking bouts, and blown by Norwegians until finally the match was met:

Till Robert, the Lord of the Cairn and the Scaur,
Unmatch'd at the bottle, unconquer'd in war,
He drank his poor godship as deep as the sea,
No tide of the Baltic e'er drunker than he.

“Six bottles a-piece had well wore out the night” before the drinking got competitive, but claret – like port and brandy – is an exception to the general rule that drink is beer or whisky.

An interesting observation by Mitchell on whisky, however, was that, a century before he was writing, it was not yet “fully naturalized” in the parts of the country in which it took strong root: “The poisonous exotic came down on us from the Highlands – the cruel avenger of the wrongs of the Celt.” In Burns, therefore, it appears as “a Highland gill,” “Usquebae,” “Ferintosh,” or “that dear Kilbagie.” And it was in beer – the “penny wheep,” the “tippeny,” the “nappy,” the “yill,” the “reaming swatsh” – that comradely pledges were made:

An’ surely ye’ll be your pint stowp,
An’ surely I’ll be mine.

“Burns represents alcohol as the great resource in sorrow, and, indeed, at all times and on all occasions, sorrowful or joyous, at kirk or at market, among all sorts and conditions of men, rich or poor, lay or clerical, in moderation or not - mostly not.”

From his late-nineteenth-century vantage, and his reading of Burns, Mitchell reasons that, while “the general abuse of strong drink” was not any worse a century before, it is nevertheless clear “that drunkenness was rife then where it would not now be tolerated.” He is talking about the drinking bouts among the gentry, for ebony whistles and such, for which a man of “rank” “who should join such an orgie … would [by Mitchell’s pleasant time] be expelled from society.” With Burns boasting of having been “bitch fou’ ‘mang godly priests,” he is also talking about the alcoholic habits of the ministers of religion, and the example set to the likes of Tam O’ Shanter, who “at the Lord’s house, e’en on Sunday/ … drank wi’ Kirkton Jean till Monday.”

“Our lairds took to drinking last century,” Mitchell continues, “because the rise in rents found them with no better way of spending their money than on the pleasures of the table.” By 1837, better pleasures, apparently, had appeared. Mitchell cites with great approval the facts of “the most notable political demonstration ever held in Scotland” in January of that year: “though port and sherry wines were served out without limit from 1,217 cut-glass decanters, yet no more than two or three out of the 3,293 noblemen and gentlemen were tipsy, and these two or three were got quietly away.” The pleasures of the working classes would parallel this development: “With the growth of higher tastes their drinking is on the wane, and it will die out in the one class as it has died out in the other.”

Mitchell is an admirable opponent of imposing higher tastes, or at least removing lower ones, by the tyrannical route: “Coercion to save grown men from making fools of themselves, or from reaping the fruits of their folly … often fails of its immediate end, and it never fails to curtail harmless liberty, and to weaken the selfreliance which has been the making of us.” But he’s not much of a prophet. Burns was far nearer the mark:

I sing of a whistle, a whistle of worth,
I sing of a whistle, the pride of the North,
Was brought to the court of our good Scottish king,
And long with this whistle all Scotland shall ring.