SCOTLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 35 



his little white pony. Dugald Graham, a dwarfish 

 hunch-back, strolled the country in a fantastic long 

 scarlet cloak, blue breeches and cocked hat. Vulgar 

 and coarse, he too was known everywhere, and his 

 poems, such as "Lothian Tom" and "Jockey and 

 Maggie's Courtship," won for him the title of the 

 "Boccaccio of the byre." 



Under the changed conditions of society quite an- 

 other sort of literary man was to be produced, but 

 he was to find a bitter conflict awaiting him with 

 some of the customs of life and traits of character 

 which his ancestors had passed on to him. The 

 blight which of all other things was to most nearly 

 blast the opening bud of Scottish genius was in- 

 temperance. While other social evils were being 

 corrected this one grew yet stronger. 



Scottish life had been held in check for many 

 years by one of the strictest of all religions. Church- 

 going had been compulsory, sermons and prayers 

 long and tiresome, and even men's ever)^-day af- 

 fairs were the objects of ecclesiastical surveillance: 

 Petrie* objected to coffee-houses because grace was 

 not said over each cup, and the minister of Dunross- 

 ness ascribes the death of a man to divine wrath be- 

 cause he laughed when he was rebuked for taking 

 his "dram" without a blessing.f Even at an ale- 

 house a long blessing must be said over each drink. 

 It was but natural that, in the vigorous era that now 

 came in, a violent reaction should take place. The 

 struggle for independence in America, v;here so 

 many Scotchmen had kindred, and the political 



* "Rules of Good Deportment," by Adam Petrie, 1720. 

 t Mill's Diary, p. 84. 



