excess, would not promise to sup with them, but upon condition that my inviter would be my protection from large drinking, which I was many times forced to invoke, being courteously entertained, and much provoked to carousing; and so for that time avoided any great intemperance. Remembering this, and having since observed in my conversation at the English court, with the Scots of the better sort, that they spend great part of the night in drinking, not only wine, but even beer; as myself cannot accuse them of any great intemperance, so I cannot altogether free them from the imputation of excess, wherewith the popular voice chargeth them.

"The husbandmen in Scotland, the servants, and almost all the country, did wear coarse cloth, made at home, of gray or sky colour, and flat blue caps, very broad. The merchants in cities were attired in English or French cloth, of pale colour, or mingled black and blue. The gentlemen did wear English cloth, or silk, or light stuff, little or nothing adorned with silk lace, much less with lace of silver or gold, and all followed at this time the French fashion, especially in court. Gentlewomen, married, did wear close upper bodies, after the German manner, with large whalebone sleeves, after the French manner, short cloaks, like the Germans, French hoods, and large falling bands about their necks. The unmarried, of all sorts, did

go bare-headed, (the case now amongst the lower Scottish women,) and wear short cloaks, with most close linen sleeves on their arms, like the virgins of Germany. The inferior sort of citizens' wives, and the women of the country, did wear cloaks inade of a coarse stuff, of two or three colours, in chequer work, vulgarly called pladden. To conclude, in general they would not, at this time, be attired after the English fashion in any sort; but the men, especially at court, follow the French fashion; and the women, both in court and city, as well in cloaks as naked heads, and also sleeves on the arms, and all other garments, follow the fashion of the women in Germany."

In 1729, another traveller, writing from Edinburgh, observes, "I have been at several concerts of music, and must say, that I never saw, in any nation, an assembly of greater beauties than those I have seen at Edinburgh. The ladies dress as in England, with this difference, that when they go abroad, from the highest to the lowest, they wear a plaid, which covers half of the face and all the body."

CHAP. XII.

SCOTTISH PRONUNCIATION-WILLIAM DUNBAR-SCOTTISH LAN

GUAGE HUMOUROUS PROVINCIALITIES-SCOTTICISMS-MENDICITY SCOTTISH POOR-POOR-LAWS-REMARKS

- SCOTTISH

POOR, HOW PROVIDED FOR-ANECDOTE OF AN ENGLISH OVERSEER OF THE POOR-DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SCOTTISH AND ENGLISH POOR-AUTHOR LEAVES EDINBURGH-QUEEN'S FERRY -BROOM-HALL-LORD ELGIN-VAST LIME-QUARRIES—DUN

FERMLINE-ABBEY.

I HAD not been long in Edinburgh before I found, in several parties of both sexes, how much the English pronunciation is admired. The mode of utterance amongst the higher classes, particularly amongst the females, is far from being unpleasant. In the latter I think it very soft and interesting: however, it is a dialect which the well-bred and the learned are desirous of expelling from their tongues and writings. But, although we have a decided advantage over the Scotch in pronouncing the language, they rival us most completely in the purity of their written English. I have heard Scotchmen assert that the English language was known in Scotland in more purity in an earlier period than in England. I should doubt the truth of this assertion, and

without meaning the slightest disrespect to the Scotch, I conceive that a natural course of events would have rendered the language in England rich, copious, elegant, and analogical, at an earlier period than in Scotland, even had the capital continued to have been irradiated by all the refinement and luxury attendant upon the presence of majesty.

It also appears from history that the power of writing the English language was, for a long period back, considered as an estimable attainment; and it was for this that William Dunbar, one of the best poets in the court of James V., was valued. Mr. Ritson, in his Historical Essay on Scottish Song, informs us, that, in the thirteenth century, the language of England and Scotland differed only in dialect; the Gaelic, like the Welch, being confined to the mountains of either country. The fathers of English and Scottish song were contemporary. Upon the death of James V., in 1542, the poetical language of Scotland was very fine and beautiful. Upon the accession of James VI. to the English throne, the Scottish language began to droop for want of royal encouragement. That princely pedant, though he could never attain the English, disliked the Scottish, pronunciation; and would suffer his Caledonian subjects to address him only in English or Latin.

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The Scotch, in constant terror of their Scotticisms, have studied English as they would a dead language; and those, who have not been much in England before the speech are formed, are not able to speak it as an Englishman. The celebrated Hume has the reputation of having been the first, who introduced into his country that dignified, and classical style of composition, which has been continued with so much felicity by Robertson, and other illustrious Scottish writers since the death of Hume, and brought to so great a degree of grace and purity, that Scottish authors cannot now injure their style by imitating one another, and that English authors may, in many instances, consult it as a model. To return to the Scottish pronunciation, I must confess that, to my ears, it is far from being agreeable amongst the lower classes of society; and every Englishman I have met with who has seen Scotland, and, I believe I may add, every refined, travelled Scottish gentleman, feels as I do upon the subject. A nice ear is very sensible of the dif ference which marks the dialects of almost every county in Scotland. The natives of Ross-shire, Inverness-shire, Banffshire, Aberdeenshire, &c. all speak differently from each other: to some this difference of dialect would amount to a foreign language. The following humourous circumstance will illustrate this difference of provincial idiom. An English gentleman, some years since, travelling into the north of Scotland, was told, when he came to Edinburgh, that he