is Romany forsooth?” say they.  Very good!  And what is Scotch? has not the public been nauseated with Scotch for the last thirty years?  “Ay, but Scotch is not”—­the writer believes he knows much better than the Scotch what Scotch is and what it is not; he has told them before what it is, a very sorry jargon.  He will now tell them what it is not—­a sister or an immediate daughter of the Sanscrit, which Romany is.  “Ay, but the Scotch are”—­foxes, foxes, nothing else than foxes, even like the gypsies—­the difference between the gypsy and Scotch fox being that the first is wild, with a mighty brush, the other a sneak with a gilt collar and without a tail.

A Charlie o’er the water person attempts to be witty, because the writer has said that perhaps a certain old Edinburgh High-School porter, of the name of Boee, was perhaps of the same blood as a certain Bui, a Northern Kemp who distinguished himself at the battle of Horinger Bay.  A pretty matter, forsooth, to excite the ridicule of a Scotchman!  Why, is there a beggar or trumpery fellow in Scotland, who does not pretend to be somebody, or related to somebody?  Is not every Scotchman descended from some king, kemp, or cow-stealer of old, by his own account at least?  Why, the writer would even go so far as to bet a trifle that the poor creature, who ridicules Boee’s supposed ancestry, has one of his own, at least as grand and as apocryphal as old Boee’s of the High School.

The same Charlie o’er the water person is mightily indignant that Lavengro should have spoken disrespectfully of William Wallace; Lavengro, when he speaks of that personage, being a child of about ten years old, and repeating merely what he had heard.  All the Scotch, by the bye, for a great many years past, have been great admirers of William Wallace, particularly the Charlie o’er the water people, who in their nonsense-verses about Charlie generally contrive to bring in the name of William, Willie, or Wullie Wallace.  The writer begs leave to say that he by no means wishes to bear hard against William Wallace, but he cannot help asking why, if William, Willie, or Wullie Wallace was such a particularly nice person, did his brother Scots betray him to a certain renowned southern warrior, called Edward Longshanks, who caused him to be hanged and cut into four in London, and his quarters to be placed over the gates of certain towns?  They got gold, it is true, and titles, very nice things, no doubt; but, surely, the life of a patriot is better than all the gold and titles in the world—­at least Lavengro thinks so—­but Lavengro has lived more with gypsies than Scotchmen, and gypsies do not betray their brothers.  It would be some time before a gypsy would hand over his brother to the harum-beck, even supposing you would not only make him a king, but a justice of the peace, and not only give him the world, but the best farm on the Holkham estate; but gypsies are wild foxes, and there is certainly a wonderful difference between the way of thinking of the wild fox who retains his brush, and that of the scurvy kennel creature who has lost his tail.