484 HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



At the competition in the following year, which took 

 place on 28th July, Mrs Henry Siddons offered a new 

 annual prize, as a token of the grateful sense she enter- 

 tained of the liberal support offered by the public to the 

 Edinburgh theatre, with reference more especially to the 

 national play of ' Rob Roy,' which was produced in Feb- 

 ruary' 1 8 19. The prize was an elegant Highland sporran or 

 purse, of the finest material, with gold tassels, a silver plate, 

 and inscription. It was voted to Kenneth Logan, late pipe 

 major of the 71st Regiment, who had gained second and 

 third prizes at previous competitions. At the meeting. Sir 

 John Sinclair, the Preses, observed that four years had now 

 elapsed since he last had the honour of presiding at this 

 competition ; during that period, he was happy to find that 

 neither the zeal for keeping up this national exhibition nor 

 the skill and abilities of the performers had at all abated. 

 In common with the other members of the committee, and 

 as representing the respectable institutions concerned, he 

 rejoiced in such a circumstance, having always felt an 

 anxious wish that the competition of Highland pipers 

 should be kept up with eclat. It was a most effectual 

 means of preserving that martial spirit for which the 

 natives of Scotland have long been so pre-eminently dis- 

 tinguished. It was that martial spirit which enabled us to 

 maintain, for so many ages, a succession of native monarchs, 

 longer than any other country in Europe ; through whom 

 the illustrious House of Brunswick now inherit the imperial 

 throne of Great Britain, and the government of the three 

 kingdoms. 



At the competition in 1822, on the 30th July, previous 

 to delivering the prizes. Sir John Sinclair addressed the 

 audience, remarking that there was no real Scotsman who 

 would not march to battle with more alacrity to the 

 animating sound of the bagpipe, than to that of any other 

 warlike instrument. The bagpipe, he went on to observe, 

 had also been for ages the favourite instrument of music in 

 Scotland. ' There is in the chapel of Rosslyn the sculpture 

 of a Cherub playing on a Highland bagpipe, with a book 

 spread before him, proving that in a very remote era, the 



