Irvine Express and North Ayrshire Post. — 1885-03-06 (Irvine, Strathclyde, Scotland)

PATNA. ME DENNISTON, the blind vocalist and lecturer, from Whithorn, gave an entertainment entitled "What Scott has done for Scotland," in Mr Petrie's Hall, here, on the evening of Friday, last week, to a very small, but appreciative, audience, which rapturously applauded almost every item of his varied programme. In consideration of the fact of Mr D's total deprivation of the faculty most essential for a task of this description, his ability as an entertainer is truly wonderful; indeed he far excels anything of the kind previously given here, even when attempted by those who labour under none of Mr D.'s disabilities. The opening piece, "The overture to Guy Mannering," at once displayed his complete mastery of the violin, its rendering being marked by a tasteful regard for light and shade, the finale being especially notable for rapid and brilliant execution. Several of Scott's songs were next sung in a style which left nothing to be desired, and he th•ea entered upon the literary part of the programme, inlibich the lecturer's intimate acquaintance with both thAtioetical and prose works of Scott was conclusively mtaifested, with a copiomness of quotation and eiequet vigour highly interesting. The 'keturer also evinced complete familiarity with contemporary literature, contrasting and comparing Scott's poems with those of Hogg, Burns, Tannahilf, and Byron. claiming; for him a position if not superior, at least uan equality witMthese. He subsequently dealt with the Waverley Novels, asserting that their merit, at imaginative works, was at all events unrivalled. Denouncing the impurity of Sinollett, the more refined icentiousness of Fielding, and the Prefaoiv if S'eree, lie stated that to &Tit wi sad 1, re fiction, that from the beginning to the en or his voluminous wsitings there was not alibigle sea' • ce, the perusal of which could bring 'a blush to the c. eek of modesty. He had enlightened the history of Ckotland by the brilliancy of his genius, and cast a halo of romance on many of its prosaic pages. Who, for an.toutw, in rsii.ii L the iiunia r.,..t,e,t 11,  was assisted in forming his conception of that turbulent age, by perusing " The Fair Maid of Perth ;" and where could one find a more faithful personal pen and ink portrait of James I. of England than in the " F ortunes of Nigel." The stirring times of the '45, are they not pictured in the pages of IVaverley, and Scottish men and manners are depicted with a felicity of touch never before equalled. To Scott we owe that mighty influx of tourists, who annually invade our "land of mountain and of flood," penetrating the most sequestered glens, and rendering necessary the erection of palatial buildings, the formation of railways, and the running of steamers from point to point along our coasts. While Scott's description of historical characters MO for the most part accurate, he must take exception to his treatment of the covenanters in "Old Mortality." _ Col. Grahame of Claverhouse was by no means the hero that Scott had made him, .1-le was, in the lecturer's opinion, a tyrannical and bloodthirsty persecutor, as his murder of John Brown of Priesthill, and too many other instances, could testify. On the other hand, Balfour of Burley was not the gloomy, murder-stained fanatic, that Scott represented, nor were the descriptions of the subordinate characters in that novel anything like truthful portraits of the tiovenanlers of the time. But, with these exceptions, all his other characters might be taken as fairly representative of their respective age and condition. In an eloquent peroration the lecturer exhorted his audience to cherish and emulate the virtues of these 'node's of life and character drawn by the master-hand of the Great Wizard, remarking that though We could not all attain to positions of eminence or distinction, we might as truly fulfil our duty to our country and to God, by acting in the spirit of Carlyle's maxim, "To do the thing that is nearest us."