ere wont to
while away the time; and though it claims no alliance with modern
associations, yet, as it required some shrewdness and dexterity to
support the characters assumed for the occasion, it is not difficult to
conceive that it might have been as interesting and amusing to the
parties engaged in it, as counting the spots of a pack of cards, or
treasuring in memory the rotation in which they are thrown on the table.
The worst of the game was what that age considered as its principal
excellence, namely, that the forfeitures being all commuted for wine, it
proved an encouragement to hard drinking, the prevailing vice of the
age.

[1] We have learned, with some dismay, that one of the ablest lawyers
Scotland ever produced, and who lives to witness (although in
retirement) the various changes which have taken place in her courts
of judicature, a man who has filled with marked distinction the
highest offices of his profession, _tush'd_ (pshaw'd) extremely at
the delicacy of our former criticism. And certainly he claims some
title to do so, having been in his youth not only a witness of such
orgies as are described as proceeding under the auspices of Mr.
Pleydell, but himself a distinguished performer.

On the subject of Davie Gellatley, the fool of the Baron of
Bradwardine's family, we are assured there is ample testimony that a
custom, referred to Shakespeare's time in England, had, and in remote
provinces of Scotland, has still its counterpart, to this day. We do not
mean to say that the professed jester with his bauble and his
party-coloured vestment can be found in any family north of the Tweed. Yet
such a personage held this respectable office in the family of the Earls
of Strathemore within the last century, and his costly holiday dress,
garnished with bells of silver, is still preserved in the Castle of
Glamis. But we are assured, that to a much later period, and even to
this moment, the habits and manners of Scotland have had some tendency
to preserve the existence of this singular order of domestics. There are
(comparatively speaking) no poor's rates in the country parishes of
Scotland, and of course no work-houses to immure either their worn out
poor or the "moping idiot and the madman gay," whom Crabbe characterizes
as the happiest inhabitants of these mansions, because insensible of
their misfortunes. It therefore happens almost necessarily in Scotland,
that the house of the