the supernatural. When we read such things
recorded by men of sense and education, (and Mr. Law was deficient in
neither), we cannot help remembering the times of paganism, when every
scene, incident, and action, had its appropriate and presiding deity. It
is indeed curious to consider what must have been the sensations of a
person, who lived under this peculiar species of hallucination,
believing himself beset on all hands by invisible agents; one who was
unable to account for the restiveness of a nobleman's carriage horses
otherwise than by the immediate effect of witchcraft: and supposed that
the _sage femme_ of the highest reputation was most likely to devote the
infants to the infernal spirits, upon their very entrance into life.

* * * * *

To the superstitions of the North Britons must be added their peculiar
and characteristic amusements; and here we have some atonement to make
to the memory of the learned Paulus Pleydell, whose compotatory
relaxations, better information now inclines us to think, we mentioned
with somewhat too little reverence. Before the new town of Edinburgh (as
it is called) was built, its inhabitants lodged, as is the practice of
Paris at this day, in large buildings called _lands_, each family
occupying a story, and having access to it by a stair common to all the
inhabitants. These buildings, when they did not front the high street of
the city, composed the sides of little, narrow, unwholesome _closes_ or
lanes. The miserable and confined accommodation which such habitations
afforded, drove _men of business_, as they were called, that is, people
belonging to the law, to hold their professional rendezvouses in
taverns, and many lawyers of eminence spent the principal part of their
time in some tavern of note, transacted their business there, received
the visits of clients with their writers or attornies, and suffered no
imputation from so doing. This practice naturally led to habits of
conviviality, to which the Scottish lawyers, till of very late years,
were rather too much addicted. Few men drank so hard as the counsellors
of the old school, and there survived till of late some veterans who
supported in that respect the character of their predecessors. To vary
the humour of a joyous evening many frolics were resorted to, and the
game of _high jinks_ was one of the most common.[1] In fact, high jinks
was one of the _petits jeux_ with which certain circles w