192 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



and as the lady did not name her family, I remained silent, 

 except to my two Boston friends, the companions of my 

 domestic retirement. I thought that perhaps she would 

 not care to advert to her own early history ; and I saw 

 them no more.* 



Among the Edinburgh friends whose hospitality 

 and kindness Professor Silliman always remembered 

 with pleasure, was the family of Mr. Ebenezer Ma- 

 son, a respectable merchant, an uncle of Dr. Mason 

 of New York. After many years he had the satis- 

 faction of renewing his acquaintance with members 

 of Mr. Mason's family, who emigrated to this coun- 

 try. 



The recollections of his Edinburgh life conclude 

 as follows : 



A supper at nine o'clock, ample although frugal, and got 

 up in good taste, frequently afforded a scene of pleasant 

 intercourse in Edinburgh families. Social intercourse was 

 easy, and in a high degree friendly. The time went away 

 rapidly, and brought us sometimes to the midnight hour, 

 when a hearty good-night followed, not unfrequently ani- 

 mated by a farewell song. Scotch social feelings needed 

 physical excitement ; it is, however, not to be denied 

 that they were often intensified by libations of the moun- 

 tain dew, the favorite name of " Highland whiskey." A 

 large bowl, reeking with hot whiskey-toddy, sometimes 

 found a place in the centre of the supper-table ; a ladle 

 served to transfer portions of the cheering fluid from the 

 central reservoir to the glasses of the guests, who sipped 

 it from time to time, by means of small ladles, one in each 

 glass j and it was not difficult to discover the effect on the 



* In Dod's Book of Peerage, &c., 1856, Sir Samuel Stirling is de- 

 scribed as the " son of the sixth baronet by his marriage with Miss 

 Folson [an error for Folsom] of Stratford, North America." (F. 



