Ossian Collection > Scottish eccentrics

THE STRANGE PROCESSION 279
Highlanders, indolent, slavish, strangers to industry. The
former have, in short, every attribute of a civilised people;
the latter are absolute savages; and like Indians and
negroes, will ever continue to be. All we can do is to
plant colonies among them, and by this, and encouraging
their emigration, try to get rid of the breed."
Pinkerton scoffed at any claim put in for Celtic merit.
He would call on the company to name a Celt of eminence.
"If one mentioned Burke " observes a late writer
"... What?" said he, "a descendant of de Bourg? Class
that high Norman chivalry with the riffraff of O's and
Mac's? Show me a great O', and I am done."
He delighted to prove that the Scottish Highlanders
had never had but a few great captains, such as Montrose,
Dundee, and the first Duke of Argyle — and these were
all Goths — the first two Lowlanders; the last a Norman,
a "De Campo Bello."
William Cleland (1661-89), the troubadour of the
Covenanters, had no better opinion of the Highland host,
judging by this Hudibrastic satire on their expedition
of 1678:
Some might have judged they were the creatures
Call'd selfies, whose customs and features
Paracelsus doth descry
In his occult philosophy,
Or faunes, or brownies, if ye will,
Or satyrs, come from Atlas hill;
Or that the three-tongued tyke was sleeping
Who had the Stygian door a-keeping:
Their head, their neck, their legs and thighs
Are influenced by the skies;
Without a clout to interrupt them.
They need not strip them when they whip them
Nor loose their doublet when they're hanged
But those who were their chief commanders,
As such who love the pirnie standards,
Who led the van and drove the rear,
Were right well mounted of their gear;
With brogues, and trews, and pirnie plaids
And good blue bonnets on their heads
Which on the one side had a flipe