Swift's word is not to be taken against a Scotchman and a Presbyterian. I believe, however, that Carstairs, though an honest and pious man in essentials, had his full share of the wisdom of the serpent.
FN 313 Sir John Dalrymple to Lord Melville, June 18. 20 25. 1689;Leven and Melville Papers.
FN 314 There is an amusing description of Sir Patrick in the Hyndford MS., written about 1704, and printed among the Carstairs Papers. "He is a lover of set speeches, and can hardly give audience to private friends without them."FN 315 "No man, though not a member, busier than Saltoun."--Lockhart to Melville, July 11 1689; Leven and Melville Papers.
See Fletcher's own works, and the descriptions of him in Lockhart's and Mackay's Memoirs.
FN 316 Dalrymple says, in a letter of the 5th of June, "All the malignant, for fear, are come into the Club; and they all vote alike."FN 317 Balcarras.
FN 318 Captain Burt's Letters from Scotland.
FN 319 "Shall I tire yon with a description of this unfruitful country, where I must lead you over their hills all brown with heath, or their valleys scarce able to feed a rabbit. . . , Every part of the country presents the same dismal landscape. No grove or brook lend their music to cheer the stranger,"--Goldsmith to Bryanton, Edinburgh, Sept. 26. 1753. In a letter written soon after from Leyden to the Reverend Thomas Contarine, Goldsmith says, "I was wholly taken up in observing the face of the country, Nothing can equal its beauty. Wherever I turned my eye, fine houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottos, vistas presented themselves, Scotland and this country bear the highest contrast: there, hills and rocks intercept every prospect; here it is all a continued plain." See Appendix C, to the First Volume of Mr.
Forster's Life of Goldsmith, FN 320 Northern Memoirs, by R. Franck Philanthropus, 1690. The author had caught a few glimpses of Highland scenery, and speaks of it much as Burt spoke in the following generation: "It is a part of the creation left undressed; rubbish thrown aside when the magnificent fabric of the world was created; as void of form as the natives are indigent of morals and good manners."FN 321 Journey through Scotland, by the author of the Journey through England, 1723.
FN 322 Almost all these circumstances are taken from Burt's Letters. For the tar, I am indebted to Cleland's poetry. In his verses on the "Highland Host" he says "The reason is, they're smeared with tar, Which doth defend their head and neck, Just as it doth their sheep protect."FN 323 A striking illustration of the opinion which was entertained of the Highlander by his Lowland neighbours, and which was by them communicated to the English, will be found in a volume of Miscellanies published by Afra Behn in 1685. One of the most curious pieces in the collection is a coarse and profane Scotch poem entitled, "How the first Hielandman was made." How and of what materials he was made I shall not venture to relate.
The dialogue which immediately follows his creation may be quoted, I hope, without much offence.
"Says God to the Hielandman, 'Quhair wilt thou now?'
'I will down to the Lowlands, Lord, and there steal a cow.'
'Ffy,' quod St. Peter, 'thou wilt never do weel, 'An thou, but new made, so sane gaffs to steal.'
'Umff,' quod the Hielandman, and swore by yon kirk, 'So long as I may geir get to steal, will I nevir work."'
Another Lowland Scot, the brave Colonel Cleland, about the same time, describes the Highlander in the same manner "For a misobliging word She'll dirk her neighbour o'er the board.
If any ask her of her drift, Forsooth, her nainself lives by theft."Much to the same effect are the very few words which Franck Philanthropus (1694) spares to the Highlanders: "They live like lauds and die like loons, hating to work and no credit to borrow: they make depredations and rob their neighbours." In the History of the Revolution in Scotland, printed at Edinburgh in 1690, is the following passage: "The Highlanders of Scotland are a sort of wretches that have no other consideration of honour, friendship, obedience, or government, than as, by any alteration of affairs or revolution in the government, they can improve to themselves an opportunity of robbing or plundering their bordering neighbours."FN 324 Since this passage was written I was much pleased by finding that Lord Fountainhall used, in July 1676, exactly the same illustration which had occurred to me. He says that "Argyle's ambitious grasping at the mastery of the Highlands and Western Islands of Mull, Ila, &c. stirred up other clans to enter into a combination for hearing him dowse, like the confederat forces of Germanic, Spain, Holland, &c., against the growth of the French."FN 325 In the introduction to the Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron is a very sensible remark: "It may appear paradoxical: but the editor cannot help hazarding the conjecture that the motives which prompted the Highlanders to support King James were substantially the same as those by which the promoters of the Revolution were actuated." The whole introduction, indeed, well deserves to be read.
FN 326 Skene's Highlanders of Scotland; Douglas's Baronage of Scotland.
