66 Transactions. 



that date and 1760 the introduction of English literature, 

 especially of the Spectator and other periodical publications, the 

 study of English authors, and, in the latter part of that period, 

 greater intercourse between the two countries, led to the adoption 

 of olijssical English in all important works. This also fostered 

 the growth of the great literaiy and scientific revival of the 

 century. Among the galaxy of men of letters and science of that 

 period may be named Hume, Robertson, Lord Kames, Tytlers 

 (father and son), Sir John and Sir David Dalrymple, Beattie, 

 Fergusson, Smith, Reid, Lord Monboddo, Cullen, the Homes 

 (poet and physician), Monroes (father and son), Blair, MackenziSj 

 Moore, Mickle (an Annan man), Adam and Sir John Sinclair. 

 The Ltnguage of England and Lowland Scotland, says the 

 historian Burton, was taken from a source common to both. But 

 afterthe War of Independencethey diverged. The English received 

 an infusion of Norman, while Scotland kept closer to the original 

 Saxon. French influence brought a few terras into the Scottish 

 language, but it scai'cely warped its structure. So it came to 

 pass that Scottish writers of the age of Chaucer and Gower wrote 

 in a language more intelligible at the present day than that of 

 their English contemporaries; in the 16th century they were 

 scarcely intelligible to each other. Under the circumstances^ 

 Latin took the place of Scottish among scholars, becoming almost 

 a mother tongue to them. But Latin, in the beginning of the 

 last century, was dying away as the common language of litera- 

 ture and science, while any attempt to keep up a Scottish literary 

 language had been abandoned in prose before the Revolution. In 

 verse it has lasted longer, but has been greatly modiiied. Besides 

 the colloquial language (I quote again from Ramsay) spoken in 

 good company about 1746-60, there was the oratorical, which was 

 used by lawyers and clergymen. That was somewhat broad 

 enough, but none were without strong traces of a provincial 

 dialect, and some in the attempt at the English idiom and accent 

 stumbled into a Babylonian dialect that neither Englishmen nor 

 Scotsmen could understand. Three Lords of Session were called 

 up to the bar of the House of Lords in connection with the 

 Porteous aflfair, and Ramsay, on the authority of Lord Kames, 

 tells us that at supper the night before they were to appeal", Lord 

 Dun thus discoursed to his colleagues — " Brethren, I am sorry to 

 say neither of you will be understood by the House to-morrow. I 



