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Page xix:-
"says he, great-bellied women, and their husbands, who
handling the bread, and smelling the wine, craved some part
thereof; and there was no remedy, but to divide and give it
all away amongst them." However, two hours within the night
they all (i.e. the males,) left AEneas's to himself,
and repaired with all possible speed, for fear of the Scots,
to a strong place at a good distance, leaving the women
behind, and refusing to accept of AEneas's company; for it
seems the Scots used at low water to pass over the river,
and fall to boot-haling. With respect to their
ravenous method of begging mentioned above, I cannot help
comparing it to that of the Haiduks, who lead a savage and
miserable life amongst the mountains of Dalmatia, and are
sometimes compelled by hunger to come down amongst the
Morlacchi of the lower country, with manners similar to
those of our Borderers: whilst their resorting to places of
defence, and leaving their own habitations in times of
danger, bears a strong resemblance to the practice of the
back-settlers in America, who being, like these, rendered
half-savages by situation, and exposed to unforeseen
inroads, are necessitated to similar resources, when they
are threatened with an Indian war; only there is this
distinction, the English savages in America shelter their
wives along with themselves, but the English savages on the
borders of Scotland refused any such allowance to theirs;
"being," as AEneas tells us, "thoroughly perswaded that the
enemies will do them no hurt, as who reckon whoredom no hurt
or evil at all." To have done with this account given by
AEneas, it appears, particularly from the remaining part of
it, that they spent their days in anxiety, and their nights
without rest: that, ingrossed with more immediate cares,
they had no ideas of any kind of improvement or elegance:
that their furniture, employment, accommodations, and dress,
bore incontestable marks of the first and rudest stages of
society; and that the condition of their women, even making
allowance for the effects of habit, must have been
particularly unhappy; since, independent of the dangers to
which they were exposed, and of the continual alarms in
which they lived, on account of their situation, they were
treated so grossly, and neglected so shamefully by the men,
as to be refused the same shelter and defence with
themselves; experiencing in this, that usage which, as it is
the constant companion, is held by all writers to be a sure
sign of the compleatest state of barbarism. What a change
has a space of time less than two centuries produced!
Having so far sketched the outline of those characters from
whom we the inhabitants of the middle of Britain are
immediately derived, I think it will be no hard matter for
any one to refer, according to the tenor of my second
proposition, their private humours as individuals, to their
publick exploits as a body, and to see in their deeds the
habits and prepossessions of their minds.
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III. With respect to customs, (the subject of the third
paragraph,) I shall, after offering two or three
observations, proceed to relate a few of those which obtain
as yet a place in the north of England, and either bear an
analogy to some that have belonged to different times and
places, or as yet preserve vestiges of the former state of
the country.
Customs may be considered as of two kinds, natural and
adventitious. To the first class may be referred those
which, rising from climate, characterise nations at large
with a great degree of uniformity; as well as those which,
being common to mankind in general, belong not to my
purpose: it is from the latter class, which, being into and
kept alive by circumstances, I have called Adventitious,
that the main body of observations which occur to the
traveller are furnished. It is from hence, that every now
and then we find resemblances between those of different
countries, that are apt to surprise at first sight, or
stumble upon singularities for which we know not how to
account; but I believe we may safely refer all such
resemblances to similarity of circumstances, either
prevailing now or at some former period, or otherwise, as I
said before, to unrecorded intercourse; whilst singularities
generally may, upon examination, be traced to some of those
unforeseen accidents which have always wandered at large in
the world, and have often been of such consequence in par-
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