University of Virginia Library

ON THE HABITS OF SCOTCHMEN.

Scotland, or North Britain, is a vast country, not
quite so large as Ireland. In length, the kingdoms are
about equal, but Scotland is less broad, being exceeding
narrow in some parts. In this respect, a Scotchman is a
fair epitome of his country. His shibboleth, however, is
sufficiently comprehensive for mercantile purposes.

The reason why Scotchmen admire their own language,
is because they are Scotchmen. “I do not know,” says a
friend, “a more remarkable instance of self-complacency
than that of a Scotchman priding himself upon mispronouncing
the English tongue.” This opinion is invidious
and incorrect, as will be seen by reasons which follow:

It must strike every one acquainted with this sagacious

people, that the chief national characteristic is—absence of
all pretence. Hence arose their zeal in the cause of the
Pretender. For it is a common proof that men are apt to
admire in others those qualities which they possess not
themselves. How else account for those Jacobin spasms,
those musical manifestations from flatulent bag-pipes,
which welcomed “Royal Charlie,” the Papist, among the
blue-nosed Presbyters of the land of Knox? Had they
not been sufficiently roasted, toasted, grilled, seared,
branded, and devilled by the Stuart, sixty years before?
Was there no elder remaining whose memory could reach
as far as the days and deeds of Claverhouse? None
whose taste for music had been seriously impaired by the
demands levied upon their auricular organs by that fascinating
cavalier? It is impossible to solve the problem,
except by the above reason.

I admire this warlike nation. None love so much to
breathe the sulphurous clouds of war as the Scotchman.
The smell of brimstone reminds him of home. He comes
from his glorious mountains, and goes into the fight bare-breeched.
Simple in his diet, he finds content in a manger;
and his admiration of the thistle is only emulated by
that patient animal so touchingly spoken of in the Sentimental
Journey. “Nemo me impune lacessit: touch me

not with impunity: if thou dost, thou shalt scratch for it,”
is his motto. Wrapped in his plaid and his pedigree;
revelling in kilts and kail brose; alike ready with his
claymore and usquebaugh; with much in his skull and
more in his mull; in Highland or Lowland; whether on
the barren heath or no less barren mountain, who can help
loving Sawney, the child of poetry and poverty? Coleridge
loved him, Charles Lamb loved him, Dr. Johnson
loved him, Junius loved him, Sydney Smith loved him, and
I love Sawney, and my love is disinterested. Bless his
diaphanous soul! who can help it?

Scotchmen differ from their Celtic neighbors in some
respects. Pat is a prodigal; his idea of a friend is
“something to be assisted;” a joke is the key to his
heart. Sawney, on the contrary, is vera prudent; a
friend means “something from which to expect assistance;”
and a joke with him is a problem beyond the
œdipus. An Irishman's idea of a head is something to
hit; a Scotchman's is something to be scratched. I do
not know of such a thing extant as an Irish, or Scotch
Jew. Thriftless Paddy with thrifty Mordecai would make
a compound bitter as salt; but a Scotch Jew, I fancy,
would be a hard hand to drive a bargain with.

Who has not heard of Scottish hospitality? Did you,

reader, ever have a Highland welcome? If not, I will tell
you what it is. It is a tune upon the national violin; the
only thing a stranger gets and carries away from the land
o' cakes.

There is a great difference between the Highland and
the Lowland Scot. This, however, is not so evident when
they migrate, and get their local peculiarities worn away
by attrition with civilized life. Yet there is, and always
has been, a difference between them. We, who live amid
a population more checkered than the most elaborate specimen
of tartan plaid, care very little whether a man's name
begin with a “Mac” or not, that being interesting only to
the directory publisher, and not bearing at all upon social
or fashionable life. But the question assumes a different
aspect when Mr. Ferguson recognizes in Mr. McFingal a
descendant of some former McFingal, who, in a moment
of playful levity, came down from Ben this, or Ben that,
with his kilted Kernes and Gallowglasses, in the manner
so beautifully described by young Norval, and at one fell
swoop carried off all his (Mr. Ferguson's) ancestral Ferguson's
owsen and kye, his Eryholmes and Ayrshires, his
lambies and hoggies, yowes, and whatsoever else of farm-stock
and implements lay handy and convenient, without
so much as leaving his note of hand for the same.

Nor does Mr. McFingal feel a throb of joy at meeting
a descendant of that Ferguson who, with a sma' band in
hodden gray, burked his ancestral McFingal, when in all
the glory of clan-plaid and sporran, the old gentleman was
looking very like a male Bloomer without pantalettes, and
reminded him of previous little familiarities by hanging
him to the nearest tree (if he found one large enough),
for fear he might never get another chance. These trifling
family bickerings, however, rarely disturb the outward
manifestations of courtesy: Mr. F. meets Mr. McF. with
the utmost apparent cordiality; although, I fear, each
have a secret impulse which had better be left hidden in
the Scotch mists of dubiety.

One faculty peculiar to Scotland is the gift of second-sight.
A remarkable dilation of the pupil when a Scotchman
sees a shilling makes it appear in his eyes as large as
two shillings. This is second-sight. To it may be ascribed
his wonderful abstemiousness. A red herrin in his ecstatic
vision becomes glorified—it rises to the majesty of a silver
salmon; a spare-rib expands to a sirloin, and a bannock o'
barley meal enlarges to the dimensions of a bride's-cake.
“You never see,” says Mr. Strahan to Dr. Johnson, “you
never see people dying of hunger in Scotland, as you often
do in England.” “That,” replied the Doctor, “is owing to

the impossibility of starving a Scotchman.” This anecdote,
which I give upon the authority of James Boswell, Esq.,
Laird of Auchinleek, will be readily understood, if we accept
the above postulate.

That second-sight is a source of great gratification to
Scotchmen is unquestionably true, but there is one exception.
Very few of that “volant tribe of bards,” I take
it, covet much a second sight of their own country. In
support of this opinion, let me mention a circumstance
which occurred some years ago in England. A Scotchman,
for some offence, was sentenced, in one of the criminal
courts, to be hanged; but his countrymen, in a petition as
long as his pedigree, besought the King to commute the
sentence, to which His Majesty graciously acceded, ordering
him to be transported instead. When Sawney heard
of this little diversion in his favor, in place of expressing
any signs of joy, he turned, with misery written in every
lineament of his face, and asked where the King intended
to send him. “To Botany Bay,” was the answer. “Gude
bless his saul,” said Sawney, brightening up at once; “I
was afeard I was to be sent hame again!”

I look forward to acquiring a taste for Scottish poetry
as one of the pleasing accomplishments of my old age.
What I mean, is that written in the melodious dialect of

the land of Hogg. Scottish prose, I regret to say, has
scarcely an existence, owing to the fact that every scholar
in North Britain endeavors to learn English as speedily
as possible, in order to fulfil his destiny; for to write
a History of England seems to be the height of
Scotch literary ambition. It is a singular fact, but for
the disinterested labors of their brethren in the North,
Englishmen would scarcely know any thing of their own
country.

Pride of birth is another happy attribute of Sawney.
No matter how unkindly the north wind may whistle
through his tattered breeks; no matter if he have not a
bawbee in his loof, nor parritch in his pot, he looks back
through the haze of antiquity, and beholds his illustrious
Forbears—like a string of onions reversed, with the biggest
ones on top, and the little ones following at a respectful
distance.

There is something so naïve in Tennant's life of Allan
Ramsay, that I cannot help bringing it in here, by way
of an episode:

“His step-father, little consulting the inclination of
young Allan, and wishing as soon as possible, and at any
rate, to disencumber himself of the charge of his support,
bound this nursling of the muse apprentice to a wig-maker.

Lowly as this profession is, it has been vindicated by one
of Ramsay's biographers into comparative dignity, by separating
it from the kindred business of barber, with which
it is vulgarly and too frequently confounded. Ramsay was
never, it seems, a barber; his enemies never blotted him
with that ignominy; his calling of `skull-thacker,' as he
himself ludicrously terms it, was too dignified to be let
down into an equality with the men of the razor. Thus,
from the beginning, his business was with the heads of men!”

If this be not getting cleverly out of a bad business, I
do not understand Scotch. Having vindicated the young
“skull-thatcher” from the sharp practice of men of the
razor, it will not be out of place to lift him a notch higher
by another quotation from the same book: “His mother,
Alice Bower, was daughter of Allan Bower, a gentleman
of Derbyshire, whom Lord Hopetown had brought to
Scotland to superintend his miners. In his lineage,
therefore, our poet had something to boast of, and though
born to nae lairdship,” (he means `not worth a rap,') “he
fails not to congratulate himself on being sprung from the
loins of a Douglas.”

In the Tropics there are certain porous vessels, through
which fluids, no matter how impure, distil in bright drops,

without showing any taint of the offensive contact. In
like manner, it is easy to imagine the blood of a Douglas
percolating through the clay of a wig-maker, and descending
to a late posterity in all its original splendor.
Methinks I see it centuries hence, running its devious
course through paupers and scavengers; through poets and
pickpockets; rusting in jails, and stagnating in almshouses,
but finally blazing out in pristine lustre—flashing
on panels—glittering on harness—blazing in plaids: the
same old feudal blood of the Red Douglas, which throbbed
in the heart of Allan Ramsay, the skull-thatcher, and
author of one of the sweetest lyrical dramas in the
language!

With this grand flourish of bagpipes, I drop the curtain.
In the words of my old friend, “May ye be as wise
as a serpent, and as cannie as a dove.”