"Cum Sapiente Pius nostras juravit in aras:
Impius heu Sapiens, desipiensque Pius."
Thus translated:
"The wise man and the Pius have laid us under bann;
Oh Pious man unwise! oh impious Wise-man!"
S. M. H.
Bailie Nicol Jarvie (Vol. ii., p. 421.).—When we spoke recently of Charles Mackay, the inimitable Bailie Nicol Jarvie of one of the Terryfications (though not by Terry) of Scott's Rob Roy having made a formal affidavit that he was a real "Edinburgh Gutter Bluid," we suspect some of our readers themselves suspected a joke. The affidavit itself has, however, been printed in the Athenæum, accompanied by an amusing commentary, in which the document is justly pronounced "a very curious one." Here it is:
"At Edinburgh, the Fourteenth day of November, One thousand eight hundred and fifty years.
"In presence of John Stoddart, Esq., one of Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the City of Edinburgh, appeared Charles Mackay, lately Theatre Royal, residing at number eleven Drummond Street, Edinburgh; who being solemnly sworn and examined depones, that he is a native of Edinburgh, having been born in one of the houses on the north side of the High Street of said city, in the month of October one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven. That the deponent left Edinburgh for Glasgow when only about nine years of age, where he sojourned for five years; thence he became a wanderer in many lands, and finally settled once more in Edinburgh a few months before February eighteen hundred and nineteen years, when the drama of Rob Roy was first produced in the Theatre Royal here. That the deponent by his own industry having realised a small competency, he is now residing in Edinburgh; and although upwards of threescore years old he finds himself 'hale and hearty,' and is one of the same class whom King Jamie denominates 'a real Edinburgh Gutter Bluid.' All which is truth, as the deponent shall answer to God.
"Chas. Mackay, B. N. Jarvie.
"John Stoddart, J. P.
"John Middleton, M.D.E., Witness.
"Walter Henderson, Witness."
Hogs not Pigs (Vol. ii., p. 102.).—J. Mn.'s remark on "hogs, lambs a year old," reminds me that the origin of this rustical word still lingers in the remote west, among the Irish and the Highland Gaels, whose gnath-bearla, vernacular tongue, furnishes the neglected key of many a dark chamber. The word to which I allude is "og," adj. young; whence "ogan," a young man; "oige," a virgin.
In these islands we still apply the old French term "aver," averium, in Guernsey, to the hog or pig; in Jersey, to a child. In France "aver" denoted the animal produce or stock on a farm; and there were "averia lanata" likewise. Similar apparently whimsical adaptations of words will not shock those who are aware that "pig" in England properly means a little fellow of the swine species, and that "pige" in Norse signifies a little maid, a damsel.