SCOnAND IN THE) mCHTIJ^NTH CEJNTURY 37 



dred illicit stills busy making whiskey to supply 

 the ever-increasing demands. Though **there 

 were drunken brawls in plenty, with fatal re- 

 sults; immorality, which was rife, especially 

 among the peasantry," yet there were compar- 

 atively few "of the greater and more danger- 

 ous offences," says Graham.* One reason for this 

 was that much of the drinking was done in the cof- 

 fee-houses and clubs, where men of all sorts congre- 

 gated together and in some ways exerted a re- 

 straining influence upon one another. With hi- 

 larity and tumult they pledged each other, drank to 

 the ladies, and emptied their glasses to such senti- 

 ments as ''May the wind of adversity ne'er blaw 

 open our door," "To freedom all the world over," 

 or in good old Scotch, "May waur ne'er be amang 

 us." Thus the clubs took on a different nature from 

 those of the day when the poet, Allen Ramsay, 

 joined and enjoyed his "Easy Club" and kept his 

 health and reputation. The later "Hell-fire Club" 

 had many of the characteristics which its name im- 

 plied. The "Bachelors' Club" to which young 

 Burns belonged, and the meetings which Wilson 

 celebrated in poems like "The Group" and "Hog- 

 menae" were of the less harmful class, but even 

 Burns's hardy constitution went down before the late 

 hours and hard drinking of the "Crochallan Club." 

 Poor Robert Fergusson, ruined by dissipation, 

 ended his days before he was twenty-five, on the 

 straw of a mad-house. It was a life full of pitfalls 

 that these poets led. Republican, socialistic and 

 atheistic ideas were hopelessly confused around the 



* "Social lyife," II, p. 234. 



