On the subject of Davie Gellatley, the fool of the Baron of Bradwardine’s family, we are assured there is ample testimony that a custom, referred to Shakespeare’s time in England, had, and in remote provinces of Scotland, has still its counterpart, to this day.  We do not mean to say that the professed jester with his bauble and his party-coloured vestment can be found in any family north of the Tweed.  Yet such a personage held this respectable office in the family of the Earls of Strathemore within the last century, and his costly holiday dress, garnished with bells of silver, is still preserved in the Castle of Glamis.  But we are assured, that to a much later period, and even to this moment, the habits and manners of Scotland have had some tendency to preserve the existence of this singular order of domestics.  There are (comparatively speaking) no poor’s rates in the country parishes of Scotland, and of course no work-houses to immure either their worn out poor or the “moping idiot and the madman gay,” whom Crabbe characterizes as the happiest inhabitants of these mansions, because insensible of their misfortunes.  It therefore happens almost necessarily in Scotland, that the house of the nearest proprietor of wealth and consequence proves a place of refuge for these outcasts of society; and until the pressure of the times, and the calculating habits which they have necessarily generated had rendered the maintenance of a human being about such a family an object of some consideration, they usually found an asylum there, and enjoyed the degree of comfort of which their limited intellect rendered them susceptible.  Such idiots were usually employed in some simple sort of occasional labour; and if we are not misinformed, the situation of turn-spit was often assigned them, before the modern improvement of the smoke-jack.  But, however employed, they usually displayed towards their benefactors a sort of instinctive attachment which was very affecting.  We knew one instance in which such a being refused food for many days, pined away, literally broke his heart, and died within the space of a very few weeks after his benefactor’s decease.  We cannot now pause to deduce the moral inference which might be derived from such instances.  It is however evident, that if there was a coarseness of mind in deriving amusement from the follies of these unfortunate beings, a circumstance to the disgrace of which they were totally insensible, their mode of life was, in other respects, calculated to promote such a degree of happiness as their faculties permitted them to enjoy.  But besides the amusement which our forefathers received from witnessing their imperfections and extravagancies, there was a more legitimate source of pleasure in the wild wit which they often flung around them with the freedom of Shakespeare’s licensed clowns.  There are few houses in Scotland of any note or antiquity where the witty sayings of some such character are not occasionally quoted at this very day.  The