288 AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LAIRD 



recipes. For instance, there is scarcely an ancient tower 

 in Scotland, whether ruinous or still inhabited, near 

 which, if the ground has not all been ploughed or 

 grazed, you will not find the garden angelica growing 

 wild : not the coarse-growing British weed (Angelica 

 sylvestris), so common along our water-courses and 

 fragrant enough in its degree, but the more aromatic 

 garden angelica (A. archangelica), a native of northern 

 and eastern Europe, ' long cultivated for confectionery,' 

 as the botany hand-books record. Preserved angelica 

 still appears on up-to-date dinner- tables ; but who 

 cares whether it be there or not ? Whereas in olden 

 time its culture, the due season for cutting it, the craft 

 of preparing it, and the encomiums bestowed upon it 

 by polite guests, represented part, though a small part, 

 of the duties of housekeeping, year in year out. 



As for the laird, time cannot have hung very heavy 

 on the hands which kept these accounts. Landowning 

 was a business calling. Although Sir Alexander em- 

 ployed a factor or agent, he dealt personally with his 

 tenants, collected his own rents, planned and supervised 

 improvements, and in his own writing entered every 

 transaction as it took place. Then there were the local 

 ' courts ' to preside over, where justice was administered 

 under the existing hereditary jurisdiction every lord 

 of a barony exercising authority within his territory. 

 It was the life that the poets have sighed for 



' Happy the man whose wish and care 

 A few paternal acres bound, 

 Content to breathe his native air 

 In his own ground. 



