nd
bonnet. But how quickly times change! My excellent friend, Mr. Gibbon
of Johnstone, Lord Gardenstone's own place, which is near Laurencekirk,
tells me that at the present time _one_ solitary Lowland bonnet lingers
in the parish.

Hats are said to have been first brought into Inverness by Duncan Forbes
of Culloden, the Lord President, who died in 1747. Forbes is reported to
have presented the provost and bailies with cocked hats, which they wore
only on Sundays and council days. About 1760 a certain Deacon Young
began daily to wear a hat, and the country people crowding round him,
the Deacon used humorously to say, "What do you see about me, sirs? am I
not a mortal man like yourselves?" The broad blue bonnets I speak of
long continued to be worn in the Highland capital, and are still
occasionally to be seen there, though generally superseded by the
Glengarry bonnet and ordinary hat. It is a minor change, but a very
decided one.

The changes which have taken place, and which give rise to such
"Reminiscences," are very numerous, and meet us at every turn in
society. Take, for example, the case of our Highland chieftains. We may
still retain the appellation, and talk of the chiefs of Clanranald, of
Glengarry, etc. But how different is a chieftain of the present day,
even from some of those of whom Sir Walter Scott wrote as existing so
late as 1715 or 1745! Dr. Gregory (of immortal _mixture_ memory) used to
tell a story of an old Highland chieftain, intended to show how such
Celtic potentates were, even in his day, still inclined to hold
themselves superior to all the usual considerations which affected
ordinary mortals. The doctor, after due examination, had, in his usual
decided and blunt manner, pronounced the liver of a Highlander to be at
fault, and to be the cause of his ill-health. His patient, who could not
but consider this as taking a great liberty with a Highland chieftain,
roared out--"And what the devil is it to you whether I have a liver or
not?" But there is the case of dignity in Lowland Lairds as well as
clan-headship in Highland Chiefs. In proof of this, I need only point to
a practice still lingering amongst us of calling landed proprietors, not
as Mr. So-and-so, but by the names of their estates. I recollect, in my
early days, a number of our proprietors were always so designated. Thus,
it was not as Mr. Carnegie, Mr. Douglas, Mr. Irvine, etc., but as
Craigo, Tillwhilly, Drum, etc.

An amusing appl