spirit, as if he had a misgiving that it might be questioned : "Is there that owre his French ragout, Or fricassee wad mak her spew Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view Poor devil! see him owre his trash, Through bloody flood or field to dash, But mark the rustic, haggis-fed, He'll mak it whissle; An' legs, an' arms, an' heads will sned, Ye powers wha mak mankind your care, But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer, Yet there can be no question that this potent pudding, which I have heard likened to a boiled bagpipe, is the lineal descendant of the French hachis, which Cotgrave interprets as "a sliced gallimaufry, or minced meat." Our hodge-podge is a gift from the same quarter. A term resembling it is in use in English law: but there is no resisting Cotgrave's "hochepot; a hotchpot, a gallimaufry, a confused mingle - mangle of divers things jumbled or put together."* A special * Oddly enough, this dish also is not without its sacred poet, vehemently protesting its Scotchness : "O leeze me on the canny Scotch, The French mounseer, and English loon, For there's carrots intill 't, and neaps intill 't, And Irish Pat, when he comes here, He shools his cutty wi' unco steer, And clears his cogue fu' brawly: For there's carrots intill 't, and neaps intill 't, That grease his gab fu' brawly. A dainty Dame she cam' our way, For there's carrots intill 't, and neaps intill 't, And filthy, greasy meats intill 't, That turn my stamach sae brawly. delicacy from the poultry-yard is known by the very Scotch-like name of howtowdy; and this is a special gift from the land of cocks, being no other than the hutaudeau, which Cotgrave says is "a cockerell, or big cock chick." In Burns's inventory of the contents of Grose's museum, we have Parritch-pats an' auld saut-backets The saut-backet, or salt-cellar, is from the French bacquet, just as our old term for a dinner-plate, an ashet, is from assiette, and basnatis, or small bowls, She gat her soup: It was unco trash, To sup sic dirt sae brawly: Nae carrots intill 't, nor neaps intill 't, Then here's to ilka kindly Scot; It smells and smacks sae brawly: These lines are taken from a privately printed collection of poems written by my late accomplished and venerable friend, Archibald Bell, the Sheriff of Ayrshire; and I think some of those who merely knew him as a man of business will be a little surprised, if not scandalised, to know that he was capable of such an effusion. from bassinet. Among Grose's accomplishments as an antiquary, "The knife that nicket Abel's craig He'll prove you fully, It was a faulding jocteleg, Or lang-kail gully." The origin of this word jocteleg was long a puzzle, until Lord Hailes solved it by attesting the existence of a large knife with the maker's name on it, 66 Jacques de Liege." The ancient allies have left among us a more formidable memorial in the "bastle - house," or "bastle-tower," generally the name given to the small fortresses built for their protection by the inhabitants of small towns or hamlets near the border. A considerable number of such coincidences may be found, but I shall content myself with one as a last word. I hope the novels of John Galt, and their descriptions of Scotch life—true, warm, and genial, like the pictures of David Teniers-are not yet forgotten. One of the best of them, The Ayrshire Legatees,' gives us the adventures of a country clergyman and his wife, who have gone to London. to secure a large inheritance unexpectedly opening to them by the death of a rich relation. Among the many types of civilised comfort which Mrs Pringle left behind her when she sojourned in that "ausome place," she informed her favourite gossip, who was fortunate enough to be within reach of the luxuries of the nearest "burgh toon," that "there wasna a jigot o' mutton to be had within the four wa's o' Lunnon." It might, perhaps, have consoled her for the ridicule bestowed by her city friends on her barbarous method of applying for that universal commodity, a leg of mutton, had she remembered that her own special term for it was a bequest by the politest nation in the world, and was the way in which the French courtiers of Queen Mary would give their orders in the victualling-shops of Edinburgh. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH. |