CLANS. 
63E 
every mara of his tribe was made welcome, and where he was enter- 
tained according to his station in time of peace, and to which all 
flocked at the sound of war. Thus the meanest of the clan, consider- 
ing himself to be as well born as the head of it, revered in his 
chieftain his own honour ; loved in his clan his own blood ; complained 
not of the difference of station into which fortune had thrown him, 
and respected himself: the chieftain in return bestow'ed a protection, 
founded equally on gratitude and the consciousness of his own interest. 
Hence the Highlanders, whom some account savage, carried, in the 
expression of their manners, the politeness of courts without their 
vices, and in their bosoms the high points of honour without its 
follies. In countries where the surface is rugged, and the climate 
uncertain, there is little room for the use of the plough ; and where no 
coal is to be found, and few provisions can be raised, there is still 
less for that of the anvil and shuttle. As the Highlanders were, upon 
these accounts, excluded from extensive agriculture and manufacture 
alike, every family raised as much grain, and made as much raiment, 
as sufficed for itself ; and nature, which art cannot force, destined 
them to the life of shepherds. Hence they had not that excess of 
industry, which reduces man to a machine; nor that want of it, which 
sinks him into a rank of animals below his own. They lived in villages 
built in valleys and by the side of rivers. At two seasons of the year 
they were busy ; the one in the end of spring and beginning of sum- 
mer, when they put the plough into the little land they bad, capable 
of receiving it, then sowed their grain, and prepared their provision of 
turf for next winter’s fuel the other just before winter, when they 
reaped their harvest : the rest of the year w as all their own, for 
amusement or for war. If not engaged in war, they indulged themselves 
in summer in the most delicious pleasure to men in a cold and a 
romantic country, — the enjoyment of the sun, and of the summer views 
of nature, never in the house during the day, even sleeping often at 
night in the open air, among the mountains and woods. They spent 
the winter in the chase, while the sun was up ; and in the evening, 
assembling round a common fire, they entertained themselves with 
the song, the tale, and the dance : but they were ignorant of sitting 
days and nights at games of skill or of hazard, amusements which keep 
the body indolent, and the mind in a state of vicious activity.” The 
want of a good, and even a fine ear for music, was almost unknow n 
among them, because it was kept in continual practice — among the multi- 
tude from passion; but by the wiser few% because they knew the 
love of music both heightened the courage and softened the temper of 
their people. Their vocal music was plaintive, even to the depth of 
melancholy ; their instrumental, either lively for brisk dances, or 
martial for the battle. Some of their tunes even contained tlte great 
but natural idea of a history described in music, the joys of a mar- 
riage, the noise of a quarrel, the sounding to arms, the rage of a 
battle, the broken disorder of a flight, — the whole concluding with 
the solemn dirge and lamentation for the slain. By the loudness and 
artificial jarring of their war instrument, the bag-pipe, which played 
continually during the action, their spirits were exalted to a frenzy 
of courage in battle. They joined the pleasure of history and poetry 
