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SCOTLAND (LITERATURE). 



There lies an appeal, in every civil case, from the 

 court of session to the house of lords, whose 

 judgment is supposed to he generally guided by 

 the opinion of the lord chancellor. In 18 J 5, trial 

 by jury, in civil cases, was introduced, and con- 

 ducted before a separate court, called the jury 

 court, presided by a lord chief commissioner. 

 This, too, has been recently abolished, and these 

 trials are now carried on under the direction of the 

 court of session. The court of exchequer, which 

 consisted once of five barons, was first reduced to 

 three, and is now abolished; one lord of session is 

 to devote one day of the week to the trial of causes 

 belonging to its jurisdiction. The consistory and 

 the admiralty courts have been abolished, and their 

 jurisdiction transferred to the court of session. All 

 these changes have sadly dimmed the juridical glories 

 of Edinburgh, and tended to wound the national 

 feeling, considering that they were accompanied by 

 no corresponding change in the courts of the sister 

 capitals, some of which lay much more open to re- 

 form or more worthy of extinction. 



The high court of justiciary is the supreme 

 criminal court in Scotland. It consists of six 

 judges, who are also lords of session, the lord 

 justice clerk presiding. Of the court sitting in 

 Edinburgh three are a quorum. On the circuits, 

 two judges travel together, but one can sit alone. 

 Circuit courts are held in all the districts twice a 

 year, except in Glasgow, which has now three 

 circuit courts a year. The trials are by jury. The 

 jury's number is fifteen; a majority decide the 

 verdict. There is no appeal from the court of 

 justiciary to any other tribunal. 



Sheriffs of counties are competent to try house- 

 breaking, theft, and other minor crimes, but neither 

 treason, robbery, rape, murder, nor fire-raising. 

 They cannot transport, but may try capitally, a 

 power now never exercised. Justices of the peace 

 have a criminal jurisdiction in riots, breaches of the 

 peace, poaching, &c. 



The lord advocate is virtually the minister of the 

 crown for Scotland. He is the public prosecutor 

 of all crimes coming before the court of justiciary. 

 The solicitor general is virtually the lord advocate's 

 coadjutor and substitute. The lord advocate has 

 three deputies, called advocates depute, who act 

 under him with full powers. The Scottish bar is 

 called the faculty of advocates, who have an exclu- 

 sive right to practise in the supreme court. The 

 writers to the signet are the first order of attornies 

 in Scotland. They have the sole right to use the 

 royal signet in writs. There are also solicitors 

 before the supreme court, and inferior courts have 

 their own procurators or solicitors. 



Language The Gaelic or Erse (that is, Irish) 

 is spoken in the Highlands of Scotland, particularly 

 in the Hebrides and the western and inland parts of 

 Argyle, Inverness, Ross, and Sutherland. English, 

 however, is now very generally understood through- 

 out the Highlands, and threatens, indeed, ultimately 

 to supplant the original language a circumstance 

 which, however unavoidable, is not to be viewed 

 without regret, when we consider the high anti- 

 quity of the Celtic tongue, and that here is the 

 last stronghold where it is to be found in compara- 

 tive purity. 



Throughout the Lowlands, a mixture of Scotch 

 and English is spoken. The English is universally 

 understood, and is generally kept by in good society; 

 yet no Scotsman of sense disdains to draw occasion- 

 ally, in conversation, on the rich stores of his mother 



tongue. It is disputed whether the Scotch be really 

 a distinct language, or merely a corruption of the 

 English or Anglo-Saxon. Dr Jamieson, who has 

 examined this subject with great learning and in- 

 dustry, contends that the language of the lowlands 

 of Scotland is as much a separate language as the 

 English, and that its basis, like that of the English, 

 is Teutonic, with a strong mixture of Gaelic or 

 French. To establish this point, he endeavours to 

 prove that the Picts were a Teutonic race, who in- 

 vaded Scotland about the same time that England 

 was overrun by the Anglo-Saxons. They colo- 

 nized, he conceives, the whole of the low country, 

 while the Gaelic population, like the Welsh, sought 

 for refuge amid the fastnesses of their mountains. 

 He corroborates these views by facts drawn from 

 history, and considers that no other satisfactory 

 account can be given of the introduction of the 

 common language into Scotland. 



Without insisting that the Scotch is a distinct 

 language independent of the English, we conceive 

 that it would be doing it injustice to call it either 

 a dialect of the English or a corruption of the 

 English. No dialect ever abounded with so many 

 words independent of its original no mere dialect 

 was ever capable of rising above the vulgar, like 

 the Scotch, into the plaintive, the tender, the su- 

 blime. As to its being a corruption of the English, 

 some mistake may arise here from confounding 

 Scotticisms with Scotch words. To say, "sit into 

 the fire," for " sit near the fire," is a Scotticism 

 and a corruption of English; but to use the word 

 ingle, instead of fire, is not to corrupt the English, 

 or commit a Scotticism, but is simply to use a 

 Scotch word, which has as good a right to be heard 

 as its English counterpart. This distinction is so 

 little attended to, that it is not uncommon to see, 

 in English grammars, "lists of Scotticisms," in 

 which you often find, not Scotticisms, but mere 

 Scotch words, an absurdity which, if carried out 

 with consistency, would embrace the whole of Dr 

 Jamieson's dictionary, in four quarto volumes, in- 

 cluding supplement. 



The Scottish language is characterized by copious- 

 ness and power of expression. Its copiousness is 

 manifest from the number of terms it possesses to 

 express the same thing under the minutest shades 

 of difference, and its power appears from the num- 

 ber of single words it contains, which individually 

 convey an extent and energy of meaning that most 

 modern languages can but imperfectly translate even 

 by a circumlocution. From its disposition to throw 

 out consonants, and produce a concourse of vowels, 

 it is eminently fitted for the melodious and pathetic : 

 while the native strength of its character renders 

 it, when necessary, powerful in the humorous, and 

 terrible in the sarcastic. 



Literature. Scotland has long been distinguished 

 for the prominent place, she has taken in almost 

 every department of literature. Even in semi-bar- 

 barous times, she cultivated the muses with suc- 

 cess. Thomas the Rhymer (see Rhymer) stands 

 first, in point of time, on the list of old Scottish 

 poets, and even preceded, by a hundred years, any 

 English poet whose works are extant. John Bar- 

 bour, the author of the Bruce, was no unworthy 

 contemporary of the great Chaucer. About the 

 same time flourished Andrew Wynton, a rhyming 

 chronicler ; and somewhat later, Henry the mins- 

 trel celebrated the deeds of Wallace in a style of 

 elegance, from which the modern versions of his 

 works have sadly departed. James I., who reigned 



