268 SCOTLAND. 



familiarized them to blo'nd and slaughter ; and the most ferocious 

 passions were, authorized and cherished by their chieftains. Their 

 kings, excepting some of them who were endued with extraordinary 

 virtues, were considered only as commanders of the army in time of 

 war; for in time of peace their civil authority was so little, that every 

 clan or family, even in the most civilized parts of Scotland, looked 

 upon its own chieftain as its sovereign. These prejudices were con- 

 firmed even by the laws, which gave those petty tyrants a power of 

 life and death upon their own estates; and they generally executed 

 their hasty sentences in four-and-twenty hours after the party was ap- 

 prehended. The pride which those chieftains had of outvying each 

 other created perpetual animosities, which seldom or never ended with- 

 out bloodshed ; so that the common people, whose best qualification 

 was a blind devotion to the will of their master, and the aggrandize- 

 ment of his name, lived in a state of continual hostility. The late 

 Archibald, duke of Argyle, was the first chieftain who had the patriot- 

 ism to attempt to reform his dependents, and to banish from them 

 those barbarous ideas. His example has been followed by others ; and 

 there can scar'cely be a doubt, but that a very few years will reconcile 

 the Highlanders to all the milder habits of society. 



The gentry of Scotland who reside upon their estates, differ little, 

 at present, in their manners and style of living from their English 

 neighbours of the like fortunes. The peasantry have their peculiari- 

 ties ; their ideas are confined, but no people can form their tempers 

 better than they do to their stations. They are taught from their infan- 

 cy to bridle their passions, to be have submissively to their superiors, 

 and live within the bounds of the most rigid economy. Hence they 

 save their money and their constitutions ; and few instances of murder, 

 perjury, robbery, and other atrocious vices, occur at present in Scot- 

 land. They seldom enter singly upon any daring enterprise ; but 

 when they act in concert, the secrecy, sagacity and resolution, with 

 which they carry on any desperate undertaking, is not to be paralleled ; 

 and their fidelity to one another, under the strongest temptations 

 arising from their poverty, is still more extraordinary. Their mobs 

 are managed with all the caution of conspiracies ; witness that which 

 put Porteus to death in 1736, in open defiaace of law and government, 

 and in the midst of 20,000 people : and though the agents were well 

 known, and some of them apprehended and put on their trial, with a 

 reward of 500/. annexed to their conviction, yet no evidence could be 

 found sufficient to bring them to punishment. The fidelity of the 

 Highlanders of both sexes, under a still greater temptation, to the 

 young pretender, after his defeat at Culloden, could scarcely be 

 believed, were it not well attested. 



They affect a fondness for the memory and language of their fore- 

 fathers beyond perhaps any people in the world. They are fond of 

 ancient Scotch dishes, such as the haggess, the sheep's head singed, 

 the fish in sauce, the chicken bvoth, and minced collops. These 

 dishes in their original dressing, were savoury and nutritive for keen 

 appetites ; but the modern improvements that have been made in the 

 Scotch cookery have rendered them agreeable to the most delicate 

 palates. 



The inhabitants of most parts of Scotland, who live chiefly by pas- 

 ture, have a natural vein for poetry ; and the beautiful simplicity of 

 the Scotch tunes is relished by all the true judges of nature. Those 

 of a lively and merry strain have been introduced into the army by 



