woollen covering, variously coloured." As the author wrote in French, perhaps he did not understand the terms tartan plaid and kilt, and as the people wore painted waistcoats and coloured coverings, it is probable, that, if they had had the addition of truis, they would not have been described as 66 almost naked." The author of "Certayne Matters" says, that in his days, (previous to 1597,) "they (the Highlanders) delighted much in marbled clothes, specially that has long stripes of sundrie colours; their predecessors used short mantles of divers colours, sundrie ways divided." The author first mentioned states, that plaids and tartan came from Flanders to the Lowlands of Scotland, in the sixteenth century, and thence passed to the Highlands; but is it certain that tartan was known in Flanders, and that tartan and the kilt were worn in the Lowlands, before their supposed passage to the mountains? But allowing, what is very improbable, that the fashion of striped and variegated clothes, or tartan, came from Flanders, it must have been much earlier than the sixteenth century; for we find by the chartularies of the Episcopal See of Aberdeen, lately edited by John Graham Dalyel, Esq. that the statutes or canons of the Scottish church, in the years 1242 and 1249, and the ordinances and regulations of the See of Aberdeen, 1256, directs that all ecclesiastics be suitably apparelled, avoiding red, green, striped clothing, and their garments not to be shorter than to the middle of the leg. Now, this red green striped clothing must have been tartan, and the forbidden garment worn shorter than to the middle of the leg, the kilt. But, to return to the article in the Scots Magazine, where it is stated, that the garb is called " "beggarly, effeminate, (this, I apprehend, is rather an unexpected characteristic,) grossly indecent and absurd," with the tasteless regularity and vulgar glare of tartan." The colours of the tartan do not appear more red and glaring than the peers' robes, the military uniforms, or the royal livery, and yet these are not generally considered vulgar. But, on the whole, as it is not probable that a people, at so late a period, would assume a garb totally unknown in the world, and in their cold climate put away the warm breeches, and expose half their body to the blast, there are the better grounds for the undivided opinion of the people themselves, that, as far back as they have any tradition, the truis, breachan-na-feal, (the kilted plaid,) and philibeg, have ever been the dress of the Highlanders. The truis were used by gentlemen on horseback, and by others as they were inclined, but the common garb of the people was the plaid and kilt. This was the usual dress down till the act passed for the suppression of the garb. My grandfather always wore tartans; truis, with the plaid thrown across the shoulders on horseback, and the kilt when on foot, and never any other clothes, except when in mourning. When gentlemen travelled southward, it was generally on horseback, consequently they wore the truis, and were often in armour; of course the Lowlanders would the more readily notice the former as a prominent part of the mountain garb, and describe it accordingly.

M. Page 84.

THE weddings were the delight of all ages. Persons from ten years of age to four score attended them. Some weeks previous to the marriage*One of the most distinguished artists of the age, Mr West, late President of the Royal Academy, differs from this opinion. He has expressed his surprise at the blending and arrangement of the colours, and considers, “that great art (that is to say, much knowledge of the principles of colouring with pleasing effect) has been displayed in the composition of the tartans of several clans, regarding them in general as specimens of natural taste, something analogous to the affecting, but artless strains of the native music of Scotland."

day, the bride and bridegroom went round their respective friends, to the distance of many miles, for the purpose of inviting them to the wedding. To repay this courtesy, the matrons of the invited families returned the visit within a few days, always well supplied with presents of beef, hams, butter, cheese, spirits, malt, and whatever they thought necessary for the ensuing feast. These, with what the guests paid for their entertainment, and the gifts presented the day after the marriage, were often so considerable, as to contribute much to the future settlement of the young couple. On the wedding-morning, the bridegroom, escorted by a party of friends, and preceded by pipers, commenced a round of morning calls, to remind their invited friends of their engagements. This circuit sometimes occupied several hours, and as many joined the party, it might perhaps be increased to some hundreds, when they returned to the bridegroom's house. The bride went a similar round among her friends. The bridegroom gave a dinner to his friends, and the bride to hers. During the whole day, the fiddlers and pipers were in constant employment. The fiddlers played to the dancers. in the house, and the pipers to those in the field. The ceremony was generally performed after dinner. Sometimes the clergyman attended, sometimes they waited on him: the latter was preferred, as the walk to his house with such a numerous attendance added to the eclat of the day. On these occasions the young men supplied themselves with guns and pistols, with which they kept up a constant firing. This was answered from every hamlet as they passed along, so that, with streamers flying, pipers playing, the constant firing from all sides, and the shouts of the young men, the whole had the appearance of a military array passing, with all the noise of warfare, through a hostile country. The young couple never met on the wedding-day till they came before the clergyman, when the marriage rites were performed, with a number of ceremonies too minute to particularize. One of these was to untie all the strings and bindings on the person of the bridegroom; nothing to be bound on that occasion, but the one indissoluble knot, which death only could dissolve. The bride was not included in this injunction. She was supposed to be so pure and true, that infidelity on her part was not contemplated. Such were the peculiar notions and delicacy of thinking among a people esteemed rude and uncultivated. As all these ceremonies, which were very numerous and very innocent, added much to the cheerfulness and happiness of the young people, I cannot avoid regretting their partial disuse. Nor can I help preferring a Highland wedding, where I have myself been so happy, and seen so many blithe countenances and eyes sparkling with delight, to such weddings as that of the Laird of Drum, ancestor of the Lord Sommerville, when he married a daughter of Sir James Bannatyne of Corehouse. On that occasion, sanctified by the puritanical cant of the times, there was one mar

* Playing the bagpipes within doors is a Lowland and English custom. In the Highlands the piper is always in the open air; and when people wish to dance to his music, it is on the green, if the weather permits; nothing but necessity makes them attempt a pipe dance in the house. The bagpipe was a field instrument intended to call the clans to arms, and animate them in battle, and was no more intended for a house, than a round of six-pounders. A broadside from a first rate, or a round from a battery, has a sublime and impressive effect at a proper distance. In the same manner, the sounds of bagpipes, softened by distance, had an inclescribable effect on the mind and actions of the Highlanders. But as few would choose to be under the muzzle of the guns of a battery, so I have seldom seen a Highlander, whose ears were not grated when close to pipes, however much his breast might be warmed, and his feelings roused, by the sounds to which he had been accustomed in his youth, when proceeding from the proper distance.

quis, three earls, two lords, sixteen barons, and eight ministers present at the solemnity, but not one musician; they liked yet better the bleating of the calves of Dan and Bethel, the ministers' long-winded, and sometimes nonsensical graces, little to purpose, than all musical instruments of the sanctuaries, at so solemn an occasion, which, if it be lawful at all to have them, certainly it ought to be upon a wedding-day, for divertisement to the guests, that innocent recreation of music and dancing being much more warrantable, and far better exercise than drinking and smoking of tobacco, wherein the holy brethren of the Presbyterian (persuasion) for the most part employed themselves, without any formal health, or remembrance of their friends, a nod with the head, or a sign with the turning up of the white of the eye, served for the ceremony." Such was a Scotch wedding towards the end of the seventeenth, and such, I hope, will not be Highland weddings of the nineteenth century, although now seldom countenanced by the presence of chiefs and landlords, as modern manners preserve a greater distance than in former days, when a more cordial communication subsisted between the higher and lower orders.

N. Page 84.

It has often been said that the music of Scotland was borrowed from Italy, and that David Rizzio first gave it the stamp and character which it now bears. If this opinion be well founded, it would be desirable to show what part of the Scottish music has been borrowed, what is original, and whether this particular kind of music was ever known in Italy. Bagpipes are common in Italy, particularly among the Tyrolese in the north, and the Calabrese in the south; yet, is it probable that the Highland pibrochs came either from Italy or the Tyrol? The Reel of Tulloch, Rothiemurchus Rant, and Jenny Dang the Weaver, cannot well claim any near connection with Italian music. Mackintosh's Lament, and Craiguana in the north, the Birks of Invermay in the centre, and the Flowers of the Forest in the south of Scotland, from their melody, bear some resemblance to it, but as there must be a similarity in all melodious sounds, it is probable, that the connection between the softer music of Scotland and the Italian is only to be found in their beauty, and that the Pibroch, Reel, Strathspey, Lament, and Songs, are peculiar to the country. The opinion which attributes the melody of the Scotch songs to Rizzio, and the sublime and elevated sentiments of Ossian to Macpherson, seem to be founded more on the ideas entertained of the rude and uncultivated state of Scotland, at an early period, as being perfectly incompatible with the delicacy of taste and feeling which both the poetry and music display, than on any authentic information. But where there is a deficiency of authentic information, there is more room for a diversity of opinion, especially as, on one side, all is tradition, supported by many facts; and on the other, all is assertion, without one fact, except some surmises originating in the vanity of Rizzio and Macpherson. The latter had too much honour to assert that he was the author of the poems, although, as the MSS. of which he got possession have disappeared, perhaps he would not have been sorry if the world had given him credit for talents equal to such compositions. The MSS. would have been clear evidence against him, but he has himself furnished complete evidence, by his poetical works, and other translations. However, a fine field of disquisition is opened, and national vanity interposes to darken the question. In the south, it cannot be endured, that a

*Memoirs of the Sommerville Family.

people who have always been considered as rude and savage, should compose, preserve for ages, and enjoy with enthusiasm, the beauties of a body of poetry, equal to what the most refined civilization has produced. In the north, again, the people are impatient and irritated at the attempts to accuse them of fraud and falsehood, and of endeavours to palm on the public the patched-up works of a modern author, as the genuine productions of their ancestors. Had the question, when first agitated, been properly managed, it might have been easily decided, when so many people were living who had the poems before Macpherson was born, and who knew that the rehearsal and learning of them formed one of the principal winter pastimes of the people. But, even at that period, who were to be the judges? The southern unbelievers could not have understood one word of the poems in dispute, although all the bards in the north had been assembled, and each had recited Macpherson's publication verbatim. The Highlanders, the only people who understood the language, and could judge properly, would not have been believed, although they had asserted, that the recitals of the bards and the translations coincided perfectly. In such a determined difference of opinion, how is the point to be settled? All, therefore, who believe that Rizzio did not, in any manner whatever, originate the national music of Scotland, and that the poems ascribed to Ossian are very ancient, (as ancient as the period when the Highlands had a king, and an university,) and so authentic as to have been handed down from father to son for ages beyond the reach of record, will continue of this belief; while those who are of the contrary opinion must remain so, as there are no proofs such as they require, that is, books or manuscripts. The manuscripts on which so much stress was laid were not many centuries old, and did in no manner prove who was the author. Had they been preserved, they would only have established this point,-certainly of some importance in the controversy,-that the poems were not the composition of a modern author; but as I believe it has not yet been ascertained in what MSS. (or if in any) the works of Homer were found and transinitted to posterity, Ossian's poems, whoever may have been the author or authors, are in good company when in a similar predicament.

O. Page 87.

WHILE game was in such abundance as to form a part of the subsistence of the people, at a time when many had the means of destruction ready, and much liberty was given, it appears remarkable, that, now, when preserved with such jealous care, it is, in many places, become so scarce, as only to furnish a short pastime to a comparatively few privileged individuals; a fact which might lead to a belief, that too great care defeats. its own object, and ensures the evil against which it seeks to guard. It is certain, that in moors which annually afford an apparently inexhaustible supply, and where good marksmen have been known to shoot more than one hundred birds in a forenoon, the game seems to increase instead of diminishing by this periodical destruction, persevered in, as it has been, for weeks, each successive season; whereas, in other moors strictly preserved, the birds are fewer in number, and becoming very scarce; at the same time, that I have been assured by men well acquainted with the state of these grounds in past times, that game was as abundant as on those which now furnish the greatest numbers. The mountains of Breadalbane, Athole, Badenoch, and other districts, furnish marked instances of this scarcity of game when protected, and of abundance where the greatest annual de

struction prevails. For the singular fact that the periodical killing of game does not diminish the annual increase, various reasons are assigned. It is said, that when the old birds are left, they chase away in spring all the young brood of the preceding season, and that these take shelter on grounds where the old birds had been killed. It is also said, that, in preserved moors, poachers are more frequent, bold, and destructive, in the expectation, as few frequent them, that they will not be discovered. A third assigned cause, and, in appearance, the most destructive of game, is, that the farmers and shepherds who occupy these moors, irritated by severe restrictions, tormented by threats of punishment, and insulted by the arrogance of insolent game-keepers, instead of being encouraged to preserve the game, and, instead of being allowed to derive from it either benefit or amusement, make a practice, in many cases, of feeding their dogs with the eggs, and when these escape their notice, accustom them to search for and destroy the young brood before they are fledged. Whether any or all of these causes affect the decrease of game, judging from the character of the Highlanders, there appears to be little doubt, that a kind and liberal indulgence to tenants in a moderate use of the gun on their own grounds, with strict injunction to their shepherds to be careful of the nests and of the young, and not to burn the heather in improper seasons, or in those places most frequented by the game, (although burning the heath in moderation is advisable, as the young sprouts furnish their principal food,) and along with this indulgence, the offer of small premiums to the shepherds for each covey of eight or more birds they can produce in their pasture, would make it their interest to preserve the game; no person could escape notice; and thus, they would form a better protection against poachers, than prosecutions, fines, and imprisonment.

P. Page 89.

IN the common transactions of the people, written obligations were ‣ seldom required, and although bargains were frequently concluded in the most private manner, * there were few instances of a failure in, or denial of, their engagements. A gentleman of the name of Stewart agreed to lend a considerable sum of money to a neighbour. When they had met, and the money was already counted down on the table, the borrower offered a receipt. As soon as the lender (grandfather of the late Mr Stewart of Ballachelish) heard this, he immediately collected the money, saying, that a man who could not trust his own word, without a bond, should not be trusted by him, and would have none of his money, which he put up in his purse and returned home. An inhabitant of the same district, father of the late Dr Smith of Campbelton, and of Donald Smith, M. D. eminent for antiquarian learning and research, kept a retail shop for nearly fifty years, and supplied the whole district, then full of people, with all their little merchandise. He neither gave nor asked any receipts. At Martinmas of each year, he collected the amount of his sales, which were always paid to a day. In one of his annual rounds, a customer happened to be from home; consequently, he returned unpaid; but, before he was out of bed the following morning, he

* When their money agreements or other negotiations were to be concluded and confirmed, the contracting parties went out by themselves to the open air, and looking upwards, called Heaven to witness their engagements, at the same time, each party repeating the promise of payment, and, by way of seal, putting a mark on some remarkable stone, or other natural object, which had been noticed by those ancestors whose memory they so much respected and loved.