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hood. In years of plenty, many thousands of them meet together in the mountains, where they feast and riot for many days; and at country weddings, markets, burials, and other the like public occasions, they are to be seen, both man and woman, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together.

"Notwithstanding the deplorable picture presented in this extract, and which Fletcher himself, though the energetic and eloquent friend of freedom, saw no better mode of correcting than by introducing a system of domestic slavery, the progress of time, and increase both of the means of life and of the power of the laws, gradually reduced this dreadful evil within more narrow bounds. The tribes of gypsies, jockies, or cairds,—for by all these denominations such banditti were known,—became few in number, and many were entirely rooted out. Still, however, enough remained to give occasional alarm and constant vexation. Some rude handicrafts were entirely resigned to these itinerants, particularly the art of trencher-making, of manufacturing horn-spoons, and the whole mystery of the tinker. To these they added a petty trade in the coarser sorts of earthen-ware. Such were their ostensible means of livelihood. Each tribe had usually some fixed place of rendezvous, which they occasionally occupied and considered as their standing camp, and in the vicinity of which they generally abstained from depredation. They had even talents and accomplishments, which made them occasionally useful and entertaining. Many cultivated music with success; and the favourite fiddler or piper of a district was often to be found in a gypsey town. They understood all out-of-door sports, especially otter-hunting, fishing, or finding game. In winter, the women told fortunes, the men showed tricks of legerdemain; and these accomplishments often helped away a weary or a stormy evening in the circle of the "farmer's ha'." The wildness of their character, and the indomitable pride with which they despised all regular labour, commanded a certain awe, which was not diminished by the consideration, that these strollers were a vindictive race, and were restrained by no check, either of fear or conscience, from taking desperate vengeance upon those who had offended them. These tribes were in short the Parias of Scotland, living like wild Indians among European settlers, and, like them, judged of rather by their own customs, habits, and opinions, than as if they had been members of the civilized part of the community. Some hordes of them yet remain, chiefly in such situations as afford a ready escape either into a waste country, or into another jurisdiction. Nor are the features of their character much softened. Their numbers, however, are so greatly diminished, that, instead of one hundred thousand, as calculated by Fletcher, it would now perhaps be impossible to collect above five hundred throughout all Scotland."

Having, in the preceding pages, endeavoured to give our readers a general outline of what may be termed the public annals of our Scottish Gypsies, we now proceed to detail some of those more private and personal anecdotes, concerning them, with which we have been furnished chiefly from local traditions, or the observation of intelligent individuals. These we shall relate without much regard to arrangement, and, for the present, without any further remarks of our own than may be requisite merely for connecting or explaining them. It may be proper generally to mention, that though we deem it unnecessary to quote our authorities by name in every particular case, or for every little anecdote, yet we can very confidently pledge ourselves, in every instance, for the personal credibility of our informers.

The intrigue of the celebrated Johnnie Faa with the Earl of Cassilis' lady, rests on ballad and popular authority. Tradition points out an old tower in Maybole, as the place where the frail countess was confined. The portrait shown as hers in the Abbey of Holyroodhouse, however, is not genuine.—Of this affair of gypsey gallantry, Mr Finlay, in his notes to the old ballad of the Gypsie Laddie, gives the following account, as the result of his inquiries regarding the truth of the traditionary stories on the subject:—"The Earl of Cassilis had married a nobleman's daughter contrary to her wishes, she having been previously engaged to another; but the persuasion and importunity of her friends at last brought her to consent. Sir