Now, of all the anecdotes and facts which I have collected, or of all which I have ever heard to illustrate the state of Scottish society in the past times, as regards its habits of intemperance, this assuredly surpasses them all.—­Of two well-known, distinguished, and leading clergymen in the middle of the eighteenth century, one who had “obtained much respect,” and “had the appearance of great strictness in religion,” is described as an enormous drinker of claret; the other, an able leader of a powerful section in the church, is described as owing his influence to his power of meeting the conviviality of the times.  Suppose for a moment a future biographer should write in this strain of eminent divines, and should apply to distinguished members of the Scottish Church in 1863 such description as the following:—­“Dr. ——­ was a man who took a leading part in all church affairs at this time, and was much looked up to by the evangelical section of the General Assembly; he could always carry off without difficulty his five bottles of claret.  Dr. ——­ had great influence in society, and led the opposite party in the General Assembly, as he could take his place in all companies, and drink on fair terms at the most convivial tables!!” Why, this seems to us so monstrous, that we can scarcely believe Dr. Carlyle’s account of matters in his day to be possible.

There is a story which illustrates, with terrible force, the power which drinking had obtained in Scottish social life.  I have been deterred from bringing it forward, as too shocking for production.  But as the story is pretty well known, and its truth vouched for on high authority, I venture to give it, as affording a proof that, in those days, no consideration, not even the most awful that affects human nature, could be made to outweigh the claims of a determined conviviality.  It may, I think, be mentioned also, in the way of warning men generally against the hardening and demoralising effects of habitual drunkenness.  The story is this:—­At a prolonged drinking bout, one of the party remarked, “What gars the laird of Garskadden look sae gash[39]?” “Ou,” says his neighbour, the laird of Kilmardinny, “deil meane him!  Garskadden’s been wi’ his Maker these twa hours; I saw him step awa, but I didna like to disturb gude company[40]!”

Before closing this subject of excess in drinking, I may refer to another indulgence in which our countrymen are generally supposed to partake more largely than their neighbours:—­I mean snuff-taking.  The popular southern ideas of a Scotchman and his snuff-box are inseparable.  Smoking does not appear to have been practised more in Scotland than in England, and if Scotchmen are sometimes intemperate in the use of snuff, it is certainly a more innocent excess than intemperance in whisky.  I recollect, amongst the common people in the north, a mode of taking snuff which showed a determination to make the most of it, and which indicated somewhat of intemperance