Perthshire in bygone days

ALEXANDER ROBERTSON. 473
endow institutions, were to come up from the dead, he
certainly would not recognise his own child.
General Eeid's great desire was to illustrate to coming
generations the state of the musical world in the first years
of the century; and at the annual concert given in terms
of his will at Edinburgh, his own pieces take the lead, and
when it comes to "The Garb of Old Gaul," the audience
rise as they do to the Queen's Anthem. Everything musical,
political, and theological has changed since Eeid's days.
CHAPTER III.
ALEXANDER ROBERTSON, OF STRUAN.
■" Since Loyalty is still the same," and " Come, my boys, let
us waive our misfortunes awhile."
" Nay, Rtay, Sir John, awhile, and we'll debate
By what safe means the crown may be recovered."
Henry VI.
During the eighteenth century and far into the nineteenth,
no class of men lived more apart from the common orders
of society than the Highland Lairds. Their dignity was
immeasurable. The position of Athole, or Breadalbane, or
Airlie could be defined with mathematical precision, but
who could set limits to the lofty grandeur of The Macnab,
or Lochicl, or Struan, or MacLean of Aros ? At Windsor,
the Georges were amenable to every national caprice ; the
First Lord of the Treasury received you in Downing Street,
and you could compass your man ; the Archbishop of
Canterbury would be found at Lambeth without formal
hat or lawn sleeves ; but a Highland chieftain in his alti-
tudes was the consummation of all human magnificence.
You could only touch the hem of his garment. The
plaited philabeg, swelled chest, and curled lip, were no safe
index to what was in suspension. "When Francis, the last
of the Macnabs, went out to his Canadian home, he heard
of an upstart in his own neighbourhood, who presumed to
subscribe himself Macnab. The laird thought that this
presumptuous cateran might eventually mount the definite
article, and, to check such a calamity, he despatched two
gillies, with red beards and limbs to match, charged to the