maintenance of a human being about such a family an object of some consideration, they usually found an asylum there, and enjoyed the degree of comfort of which their limited intellect rendered them susceptible. Such idiots were usually employed in some simple sort of occasional labour; and if we are not misinformed, the situation of turn-spit was often assigned them, before the modern improvement of the smoke-jack. But, however employed, they usually displayed towards their benefactors a sort of instinctive attachment, which was very affecting. We knew one instance in which such a being refused food for many days, pined away, literally broke his heart, and died within the space of a very few weeks after his benefactor's decease. We cannot now pause to deduce the moral inference which might be derived from such instances. It is, however, evident, that if there was a coarseness of mind in deriving amusement from the follies of these unfortunate beings, a circumstance to the disgrace of which they were totally insensible, their mode of life was, in other respects, calculated to promote such a degree of happiness as their faculties permitted them to enjoy. But besides the amusement which our forefathers received from witnessing their imperfections and extravagances, there was a more legitimate source of pleasure in the wild wit which they often flung around them with the freedom of Shakspeare's licensed clowns. There are few houses in Scotland of any note or antiquity where the witty sayings of some such character are not occasionally quoted

at this very day. The pleasure afforded to our forefathers by such repartees was, no doubt, heightened by their wanting the habits of more elegant amusement. But in Scotland the practice long continued, and in the house of one of the very first noblemen of that country (a man whose name is never mentioned without reverence) and that within the last twenty years, a jester such as we have mentioned stood at the side-table during dinner, and occasionally amused the guests by his extemporaneous sallies. Imbecility of this kind was even considered as an apology for intrusion upon the most solemn occasions. All know the peculiar reverence with which the Scottish of every rank attend on funeral ceremonies. Yet within the memory of most of the present generation, an idiot [called Jamie Duff], of an appearance equally hideous and absurd, dressed, as if in mockery, in a rusty and ragged black coat, decorated with a cravat and weepers made of white paper in the form of those worn by the deepest mourners, preceded almost every funeral procession in Edinburgh, as if to turn into ridicule the last rites paid to mortality.

It has been generally supposed that in the case of these, as of other successful novels, the most prominent and peculiar characters were sketched from real life. It was only after the death of Smollet, that a bookbinder and a barber con

1 [Alluding to this elsewhere, Sir Walter Scott adds-" until he (the jester) carried the joke rather too far, in making proposals to one of the young ladies of the family, and publishing the bans betwixt her and himself in the public church.”—Note to Waverley, New Edit.]

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tended about the character of Strap, which each asserted was modelled from his own: but even in the lifetime of the present author, there is scarcely a dale in the pastoral districts of the southern counties but arrogates to itself the possession of the original Dandie Dinmont. As for Bailie MacWheeble, a person of the highest eminence in the law perfectly well remembers having received fees from him. We ourselves think we recognise the prototype of Meg Merrilies, on whose wild fidelity so much of the interest of Guy Mannering hinges, in the Jean Gordon of the following extraet 2:

"Old Jean Gordon, of Yetholm, who had sway among her tribe, was well remembered by old persons of the last generation. She was quite a Meg Merrilies, and possessed the savage virtue of fidelity in the same perfection. Having been often hospitably received at the farm-house of Lochside, near Yetholm, she had carefully abstained from committing any depredations on the farmer's property. But her sons (nine in number) had not, it seems, the same delicacy, and stole a brood-sow from their kind entertainer. Jean was so much mortified at this irregularity, and so much ashamed of it, that she absented herself from Lochside for several years. At length, in consequence of some temporary pecuniary necessity, the Goodman of Lochside was obliged to go to Newcastle to get some money to pay his rent. Returning through the mountains of Cheviot he was benighted and lost his way. A light glimmering through the window of a large waste barn, which had survived the farm-house to which it had once belonged, guided him to a place of shelter, and when he knocked at the door, it was opened by Jean Gordon. Her very remarkable figure, for she was nearly six feet high, and her equally remarkable features and dress, rendered it impossible to mistake

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[See ante, vol iii. p. 127, notes.]

See a very curious paper, entitled "Notices on the Scottish Gipsies," in a new publication called the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine. (The bulk of this paper (including the passage here given) was written by Sir Walter Scott himself. The rest of his contributions will be found in his own notes on Guy Mannering.]

her for a moment; and to meet with such a character in so solitary a place, and probably at no great distance from her clan, was a terrible surprise to the poor man whose rent (to lose which would have been ruin to him) was about his person. Jean set up a loud shout of joyful recognition- Eh sirs! the winsome Gude-man of Lochside! Light down, light down, for ye maunna gang farther the night and a friend's house sae near.' The farmer was obliged to dismount and accept of the gipsy's offer of supper and a bed. There was abundance of provisions in the barn, however it might be come by, and preparations were going on for a plentiful supper, which the farmer, to the great increase of his anxiety, observed was calculated for ten or twelve guests, of the same description probably with his landlady. Jean left him in no doubt on the subject. She brought up the story of the stolen sow, and noticed how much pain and vexation it had given her; like other philosophers, she remarked that the world grows worse daily; and like other parents, that the bairns got out of her guiding and neglected the old gipsy regulations, which commanded them to respect in their depredations the property of their benefactors. The end of all this was an enquiry what money the farmer had about him, and an urgent request that he would make her his purse-keeper, since the bairns, as she called her sons, would soon return home. The poor farmer made a virtue of necessity, told his story, and surrendered his gold to Jean's custody; she made him put a few shillings in his pocket, observing it would excite suspicion should he be found travelling altogether pennyless. This arrangement being made, the farmer lay down on a sort of shake-down, as the Scotch call it, upon some straw, but, as will easily be believed, slept not. About midnight the gang returned with various articles of plunder, and talked over their exploits in language which made the farmer tremble. They were not long in discovering their guest, and demanded of Jean whom she had got there? 'E'en the winsome Gude-man of Lochside, poor body,' replied Jean, he's been at Newcastle seeking for siller to pay his rent, honest man, but the deil be lick'd he's been able to gather in, and so he's gaun e'en haine wi' a toom purse and a sair heart.'-' That may be, Jean,' replied one of the banditti, but we maun ripe' his pouches a bit, and see if it be true or no.' Jean set up her throat in exclamations against the breach of hospitality, but without producing any change of their determination. The farmer soon heard their stifled whispers and light steps by his bedside, and understood they were rummaging his

Rummaging his pockets.

clothes. When they found the money which the foresight of Jean Gordon had made him retain, they held a consultation if they should take it or no, but the smallness of the booty and the vehemence of Jean's remonstrances, determined them in the negative. They caroused and went to rest. So soon as day returned, Jean roused her guest, produced his horse, which she had accommodated behind the hallan, and guided him for some miles till he was on the high-road to Lochside. She then restored his whole property, nor could his earnest entreaties prevail on her to accept so much as a single guinea.

"I have heard the old people at Jedburgh say that all Jean's sons were condemned to die there on the same day. It is said the jury were equally divided, but that one of their number, a friend to justice, who had slept during the whole discussion, waked suddenly, and gave his casting vote for condemnation in the emphatic words, " Hang them a'.'-Jean was present, and only said, The Lord help the innocent in a day like this.' Her own death was accompanied with circumstances of brutal outrage, of which poor Jean was in many respects wholly undeserving. Jean had, among other demerits, or merits, as you may choose to rank it, that of being a staunch Jacobite. She chanced to be at Carlisle upon a fair or market day, soon after the year 1746, where she gave vent to her political partiality, to the great offence of the rabble of that city. Being zealous in their loyalty when there was no danger, in proportion to the tameness with which they had surrendered to the Highlanders in 1745, the mob inflicted upon poor Jean no slighter penalty than that of ducking her to death in the Eden. It was an operation of some time, for Jean was a stout woman, and, struggling with her murderers, often got her head above water, and while she had voice left, continued to exclaim at such intervals, Charlie yet, Charlie yet.' When a child, and among the scenes which she frequented, I have often heard these stories, and cried piteously for the fate of poor Jean Gordon, who, with all the vices and irregularities of her degraded tribe and wandering profession, was always mentioned by those who had known her, with a sort of compassionate regret."

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Although these strong resemblances occur so frequently, and with such peculiar force, as almost to impress us with the conviction that the author sketched from nature, and not from fancy alone;