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Page xxv:-
shouts as they went into battle, were not forgot in the
beginning of this century; since Lord Viscount Dundee, as he
began the battle at the Pass of Gillicrankie, encouraged his
men with them in the contest between King William and the
House of Stewart. Applicable to this subject, and to the
uniformity of manners from uniformity of circumstances, is,
that robbery is not considered as shameful amongst the
Arabs; nor was it, as we learn from the old poets, amongst
the Greeks in more remote times, nor, as history uniformly
tells us, amongst the Borderers. In addition to history,
tradition, amongst other things, tells; "that a woman had
two sons; as long as her provisions lasted, she set them
regularly on the table; but as soon as they were finished,
she brought them forth two swords, which she placed upon the
table, and said, Sons, I have no meat for you, go seek your
dinner." So familiar a thing was rapine!
When I said elsewhere that Solitude preserved language from
change, I might have added Customs also: Amongst the many
living examples of this, I need instance none but that of
the celebration of Christmas. In proportion as you advance
into the more lonely and mountainous districts, so much the
more is the ancient fashion of that festival perfect; the
numbers of pies, and of rural attendants on conviviality
increased; the waits with their fiddles pass from
village to village; and the winter merry-nights (as
they are called,) supply the want of the wakes, which are
common (at other seasons indeed,) in the more Southern
counties.
Thus have I endeavoured to give an idea of those customs
amongst which I was educated, and of some far older than the
present age of men. I am apprehensive that I shall be
accused of having descended to trifles unworthy of notice:
Let it be remembered, however, that great things have their
connection with, if not often their birth from trifles, and
that reasoning finds a fund of analogies in unimportant
objects. I will however frankly confess, that I have
mentioned several customs which are not peculiar to thee
counties, that I have omitted several that are so, and that
the whole is in an undigested state. My excuse for the
first, is that I wished, by comparisons of things that could
be called peculiar, to prompt others to a more ample
investigation of so entertaining a subject, as that of
resemblance of manners in different countries, and to
attempt the investigation of its causes from history, either
general or particular. With regard to the second, I only
say, that the bounds of an Introduction did not correspond
with it, and that those peculiarities will be found more at
large in the history of the places to which they belong. My
apology for the third is, that I was not writing a regular
Essay, but throwing out a few hints, which alluded to a part
of the design of the following Work.
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IV. I come now to my fourth paragraph, or to that which
respects the dialects of these parts. In a subject which
opens so wide a field as this does, it cannot well be
expected; but even though I touch upon its particular parts
in a very slight manner, I must occasionally meddle,
according to my general plan, with things that are not
merely confined to it. There needs nothing else to prove how
negligent an established language is of its general terms,
than an examination of numberless words in the English
tongue, and examining their derivation and composition. Such
an examination will be most easily performed by consulting
the works of Lexicographers, and then observing how obsolete
the original or component parts of many common words are
become. Neither will any one, conversant in history, be at a
loss in accounting for the relicks of various languages
intermingled with ours: The words compounded of Latin
prepositions, and Saxon or French verbs and substantives,
are a living instance of the heterogeneous mixture. Such
things I therefore pass by: but when I said that it was
perhaps not unworthy of a thinking mind to observe how words
exiled from one language still retain their original
signification in another of a kindred stock, I meant to be a
little more particular. For if Dutch and English words were
found by Busbequius, Ambassador from the Emperor to the
Ottoman Court in Taurica Chersonesus, we may fairly infer,
that languages which have kept company through so many
nations must have been very intimate. But to return to my
purpose: Bleke in the Dutch is
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