[485] Martin, 2d ed. p. 112.
[486] Western Islands, p. 122.
[487] Journey to the Hebrides, p. 166.
[488] Id.
[489] Martin, p. 300.
[490] Journey to the Western Islands, pp. 167, 168.
[491] “On that occasion, sanctified by the puritanical cant of the times, there was one marquis, three earls, two lords, sixteen barons, and eight ministers present at the solemnity, but not one musician; they liked yet better the bleating of the calves of Dan and Bethel—the ministers’ long-winded, and sometimes nonsensical graces, little to purpose—than all musical instruments of the sanctuaries, at so solemn an occasion, which, if it be lawful at all to have them, certainly it ought to be upon a wedding-day, for divertisement to the guests, that innocent recreation of music and dancing being much more warrantable and far better exercise than drinking and smoking tobacco, wherein the holy brethren of the Presbyterian (persuasion) for the most part employed themselves, without any formal health, or remembrance of their friends, a nod with the head, or a sign with the turning up of the white of the eye, served for the ceremony.”—Stewart’s Sketches—Memoirs of the Sommerville Family.
[492] “Playing the bagpipes within doors,” says General Stewart, “is a Lowland and English custom. In the Highlands the piper is always in the open air; and when people wish to dance to his music, it is on the green, if the weather permits; nothing but necessity makes them attempt a pipe-dance in the house. The bagpipe was a field instrument intended to call the clans to arms, and animate them in battle, and was no more intended for a house than a round of six-pounders. A broadside from a first-rate, or a round from a battery, has a sublime and impressive effect at a proper distance. In the same manner, the sound of bagpipes, softened by distance, had an indescribable effect on the mind and actions of the Highlanders. But as few would choose to be under the muzzle of the guns of a battery, so I have seldom seen a Highlander, whose ears were not grated when close to pipes, however much his breast might be warmed, and his feelings roused, by the sounds to which he had been accustomed in his youth, when proceeding from the proper distance.”—Sketches, App. xxiii.
[493] Dr. M’Queen’s Dissertation.
[494] Stewart’s Sketches, vol. i. p. 86.