the old folks discussed the live points of the
Calvinistic controversy. Never were they
likelier to grow warm than when sharpening
each other's wits with knotty points about
predestination, free will, necessity, faith and
grace. A young man would sometimes try a
joust with an old one of established repute,
and perhaps seek from the bright eyes of a
maiden, demurely knitting in a corner, the
acknowledgment that he knew as well as
another what stands to reason—"fat stans to
riz'n."

"Fat stans to riz'n!" Were I asked to
describe the intellectual condition of the
Scotch by a phrase, I should say they are
the nation who ask what stands to reason.
This is an abridgment of the Scottish philosophy
in colleges and cottages. The Frenchman,
who is still the modern Greek or Roman,
asks in reference to a standard of appearance
or beauty, the comme il faut, and condemns
what is ugly, or vilain, or bête. The Englishman
asks "will it pay?" When an Englishman
says, "How do you do?" he has an eye
to business; when a Frenchman asks, "Comment
vous portez-vous," how do you carry
yourself, he has appearance, decoration, glory
in his mind: and when a Scotchman asks—
"Hoo's a' wi' ye?" how is all with you? his
all embracing philosophy inquires if everything
concerning you accords with the fitness
or reason of things. Some years ago, I found
myself, rather late in the evening of a fair
day, in a dancing-booth in Hertfordshire.
The village lads had drunk too much beer.
One of them, wishing for a row, began
leaping up to the little wooden triangle in
which the candles were fixed, to blow them
out. Two young men, who were more sober,
opposed and thwarted his design—the one,
an English groom, asking him, "What
will you get by it?" the other, a Scotch
gardener, exclaiming, "Hoots min! it does
na stand to riz'n,"—fie man! it does not
stand to reason. Here is another illustration
of the characteristic of the Englishman. It
once happened to me to dine at a public dinner
at the Freemasons' Tavern, when a series
of orators broke down in their speeches.
The company preferred their wine and
conversation to the orations of the programme.
Dismay seized the speechifiers, and it seemed
impossible that any one could get on amidst
the impatient interruptions which arose from
all parts of the hall. The late Lord Nugent
turned to me and said, "You'll see they will
listen to nobody until some one manages to
introduce the word business into the first
sentence of his speech." I gave the hint to
the next speaker, who did not take it and
broke down. Lord Nugent himself, in his
turn, got up, and said with a solemn voice,
"May it please your Grace, my Lords, and
Gentlemen. What I have to say in relation
to the business of the evening—." Hear,
hear, hear! burst loudly from all sides, and
the orators got through their work
triumphantly. Reason, business, glory, resume
three nations in three words.

I return to the cottages of the Don Fishers
of a winter evening. Scandinavian and Celtic
traditions were repeated by grave voices.
The Celts were described as military clans
who landed on the Western islands, and
spread themselves over the mountains, killing
wolves and living upon deer—

A chasing the wild deer and following the roe.

The Scandinavians were described as sea-
kings, who landed upon the east coasts, killing
bears and seals, and living upon salmon.
The highlander was a soldier and a venison-
eater, and the Pight (Pict), was a sailor and
a salmon-eater. The descendant of the
Scandinavian, on the authority of his traditions,
denied with indignation the pretension of the
Celt, that his ancestors were the less ancient
inhabitants of Scotland. He said, compare
our numbers, and that will show you that we
were here first, and have had the longest
time to multiply in the land; the lowlander
being a Pight, and the highlander a Celt.

The ballads sung by old people were of a
kind I have never read in print. There was
one about John o' Noth and John o' Benachie
(Noth and Benachie being two mountains in
Aberdeenshire), who were described as giants
playing at foot-ball with the hills of Scotland.
When puzzling my head in after years to
find the meaning of this wild chant, I have
suspected it was a traditionary lesson in
geography, wrapped up in the marvellous and
fabulous form of a battle of giants. When
men had not books they had rhymes, and
sang in a ballad, or condensed into a proverb
or a distich, the knowledge which is now
spread (often in a plainer form, I grant),
over a page. The young women who had
sweet voices, sung soft and melancholy
songs of domestic interest. What they were,
I have forgotten, but I remember they
resembled in character the Keel Rows and
the Boatie Rows, I fancy I have been familiar
from my infancy with such stanzas as,

I cast my line in Largo Bay,
And fishes I caught nine;
There's three to boil, and three to fry,
And three to bait the line.

and again—

The keel rows, the keel rows,—
And better may she speed,
The keel rows, the keel rows,
That wins the bairnies' breed.

The fishers of the Scotch East Coasts have
never been degraded by feudal institutions.
They inherited the proud independence of
the sea-kings. Never adscripti glebi, and
never calling any man "My Lord," there was
no trace in their manners of pauperism,
prostitution, or profligacy. When worshippers
of Odin, their marriages were contracted by
handfasting and troth-plighting in presence
of their relatives, and beside the pillar of the
gode or chief. Long after the Papal form of