CHAPTEE XVII. 



DOMESTIC LIFE AND SOCIAL HABITS DKESS FOOD 



DRINK AND DRINKING CUSTOMS. 



UNDER the date of October, 1730, the compiler of the 

 Domestic Annals says : " We are now arrived at a 

 time which seems to mark very decidedly a transition 

 in Scotland from poverty to growing wealth, from the 

 Puritanic manners of the seventeenth century to the 

 semi-licence and ease of the eighteenth, and conse- 

 quently from restricted to expanded views." This 

 statement is no doubt true in a general sense, though 

 one rather hesitates to accept without considerable 

 abatement Mr. Chambers's averments concerning the 

 severe theological creed and dismally morose habits of 

 "all respectable persons" in Scotland previous to 1730. 

 There is some temptation even to say that there must 

 have been a dash of conscious if not intentional carica- 

 ture in the picture given " Amongst the upper classes, 

 the head of the family," we are told, " was for the most 

 part an awful personage, who sat in a special chair by 

 the fireside, and at the head of the table, with his hat 

 on ; often served at meals with special dishes, which no 

 one else, not even guests, partook of. In all the arrange- 

 ments of the house his convenience and tastes were 

 primarily studied. His children approached him with 

 fear, and never spoke with any freedom before him. 

 At meals the lady of the house helped everyone as she 

 herself might choose. The dishes were at once ill-cooked 

 and ill-served. It was thought unmeet for man that he 

 should be nice about food. Nicety and love of rich 



