For naught can cheer the heart sae weel As can a canty Highland reel; It even vivifies the heel To skip and dance: Lifeless is he wha canna feel Its influence.

HIGHLAND MARY Ye banks and braes and streams around The castle o' Montgomery, Green be your woods and fair your flowers, Your waters never drumlie!

For there I took the last fareweel O' my sweet Highland Mary.

The golden hours, on angel wings, Flew o'er me and my dearie; For dear to me as light and life Was my sweet Highland Mary.

Now green's the sod and cauld's the clay That wraps my Highland Mary!

But still within my bosom's core Shall live my Highland Mary!

He had, in 1745, joined the Highland army at Fort Augustus, and continued in it till after the battle of Culloden.

The very Highland names, or the sound of a bagpipe, will stir my blood, and fill me with a mixture of melancholy and respect for courage; with pity for an unfortunate and superstitious regard for antiquity, and thoughtless inclination for war; in short, with a crowd of sensations with which sober rationality has nothing to do.

Hay led the horse's head, talking to Dr. Johnson as much as he could; and (having heard him, in the forenoon, express a pastoral pleasure on seeing the goats browzing) just when the Doctor was uttering his displeasure, the fellow cried, with a very Highland accent, 'See, such pretty goats!'

Here now was a common ignorant Highland clown, imagining that he could divert, as one does a child,Dr. Samuel Johnson!

But my fellow-traveller and I were now full of the old Highland spirit, and were dissatisfied at hearing of racked rents and emigration, and finding a chief not surrounded by his clan.

Dr. Johnson said, 'Sir, the Highland chiefs should not be allowed to go farther south than Aberdeen.

After dinner, when I alone was left at table with the few Highland gentlemen who were of the company, having talked with very high respect of Sir James Macdonald, they were all so much affected as to shed tears.

One of them was Mr. Donald Macdonald, who had been lieutenant of grenadiers in the Highland regiment, raised by Colonel Montgomery, now Earl of Eglintoune, in the war before last; one of those regiments which the late Lord Chatham prided himself in having brought from 'the mountains of the North:' by doing which he contributed to extinguish in the Highlands the remains of disaffection to the present Royal Family.

On its being mentioned, that a present had here been made to him of a curious specimen of Highland antiquity, Dr. Johnson said, 'Sir, it was more than he deserved; the dog is a Whig.' We here enjoyed the comfort of a table plentifully furnished[470], the satisfaction of which was heightened by a numerous and cheerful company; and we for the first time had a specimen of the joyous social manners of the inhabitants of the Highlands.

I never saw a figure that gave a more perfect representation of a Highland gentleman.

Infidelity in a Highland gentleman appeared to me peculiarly offensive.

Though we had passed over not less than four-and-twenty miles of very rugged ground, and had a Highland dance on the top of Dun Can, the highest mountain in the island, we returned in the evening not at all fatigued, and piqued ourselves at not being outdone at the nightly ball by our less active friends, who had remained at home.

Old Rasay joined the Highland army in 1745, but prudently guarded against a forfeiture, by previously conveying his estate to the present gentleman, his eldest son[510].

I was here amused to find Mr. Cumberland's comedy of the Fashionable Lover, in which he has very well drawn a Highland character, Colin M'Cleod, of the same name with the family under whose roof we now were.

Dr. Macleod being informed of this difficulty, said he would risk his life once more for Prince Charles; and it having occurred, that there was a little boat upon a fresh-water lake in the neighbourhood, young Rasay and Dr. Macleod, with the help of some women, brought it to the sea, by extraordinary exertion, across a Highland mile of land, one half of which was bog, and the other a steep precipice.

It was afterwards found out that he was one of the Highland army, who was himself in danger.

I am now convinced that his suspicions were groundless; for I have had a good deal of conversation upon the subject with my very worthy and ingenious friend, Mr. Andrew Lumisden, who was under secretary to Prince Charles, and afterwards principal secretary to his father at Rome, who, he assured me, was perfectly satisfied both of the abilities and honour of the generals who commanded the Highland army on that occasion.

When they were near Mr. John M'Kinnon's house, they met a man of the name of Ross, who had been a private soldier in the Highland army.

] Let Psalm-singing Churchmen and Lutheran sing, They can’t deceive God with their blarney; They might just as well dance the Highland Fling, Or sing the fair fame of Kate Kearney.