[15] Thus Mrs. Grant of Laggan tells us that she sat up on Sunday night, 17th October, 1794, that she might write a letter to a friend ‘without infringing on a better day.’—Letters from the Mountains, 5th edit., vol. iii., p. 14.
[16] Satyre of the Three Estaitis, Part ii.
[17] More ludicrous still was the desire of the Highland porter in Glasgow who, as Dr. Norman Macleod relates, ‘sent his amputated finger to be buried in the graveyard of the parish beside the remains of his kindred. It is said also that a bottle of whisky was sent along with the finger, that it might be entombed with all honour.’
[18] The statistics for Edinburgh University during 1903 show that of the 1451 students of medicine 677 or over 46 per cent. belonged to Scotland; 333, or nearly 23 per cent., were from England and Wales; 118 from Ireland; 72 from India; 232, or about 16 per cent., from British Colonies; and 19 from foreign countries.
[19] This story is sometimes said to have been told by the Rev. Dr. Guthrie. It is also reported as having had its origin in a smiddy at Auchtermuchty, in Fife. The idea is probably as old as the human race. The Ayrshire farmer’s expression of it however was a good deal more graphic than Pope’s
We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow,
Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.
[20] Another version of this story changes the father into the grandmother!
[21] Letters from the Mountains, 5th edition, vol. ii., p. 124
[22] Burt’s Letters, 5th edition (1818), vol. ii., pp. 46, 47.