enriching and improving the English
language, if full and accurate glossaries of improved Scotch words and
phrases--those successfully used by the best writers, both in prose and
verse--were given, with distinct explanation and reference to
authorities? This has been done in France and other countries, where
some dictionaries accompany the English, in some cases with Scotch
synonyms, in others with varieties of expression."--_Installation
Address_, p. 63.

The Scotch, as a people, from their more guarded and composed method of
speaking, are not so liable to fall into that figure of speech for which
our Irish neighbours are celebrated--usually called the Bull; some
specimens, however, of that confusion of thought, very like a bull, have
been recorded of Scottish interlocutors.

Of this the two following examples have been sent to me by a kind
friend.

It is related of a Scottish judge (who has supplied several anecdotes of
Scottish stories), that on going to consult a dentist, who, as is usual,
placed him in the professional chair, and told his lordship that he must
let him put his fingers into his mouth, he exclaimed, "Na! na! ye'll
aiblins _bite me_."

A Scottish laird, singularly enough the grandson of the learned judge
mentioned above, when going his round to canvass for the county, at the
time when the electors were chiefly confined to resident proprietors,
was asked at one house where he called if he would not take some
refreshment, hesitated, and said, "I doubt it's treating, and may be
ca'd _bribery_."

But a still more amusing specimen of this figure of speech was supplied
by an honest Highlander, in the days of sedan chairs. For the benefit of
my young readers I may describe the sedan chair as a comfortable little
carriage fixed to two poles, and carried by two men, one behind and one
before. A dowager lady of quality had gone out to dinner in one of these
"leathern conveniences," and whilst she herself enjoyed the hospitality
of the mansion up-stairs, her bearers were profusely entertained
downstairs, and partook of the abundant refreshment offered to them.
When my lady was to return, and had taken her place in the sedan, her
bearers raised the chair, but she found no progress was made--she felt
herself sway first to one side, then to the other, and soon came bump
upon the ground, when Donald behind was heard shouting to Donald before
(for the bearers of sedans were always Highlanders), "Let her down,
D