the idea of a prudent or cautious person so
much as of one who is not rude, but considerate of the opinions of
others. Such application of the word is said to have been made by Dr.
Chalmers to the late Henry, Bishop of Exeter. These two eminent
individuals had met for the first time at the hospitable house of the
late Mr. Murray, the publisher. On the introduction taking place, the
Bishop expressed himself so warmly as to the pleasure it gave him to
meet so distinguished and excellent a man as Dr. Chalmers, that the
Doctor, somewhat surprised at such an unexpected ebullition from an
English Church dignitary, could only reply, "Oh, I am sure your lordship
is very 'discreet[60].'"

_Enterteening_ has in olden Scottish usage the sense not of amusing, but
interesting. I remember an honest Dandie Dinmont on a visit to Bath. A
lady, who had taken a kind charge of him, accompanied him to the
theatre, and in the most thrilling scene of Kemble's acting, what is
usually termed the dagger scene in Macbeth, she turned to the farmer
with a whisper, "Is not that fine?" to which the confidential reply was,
"Oh, mem, its verra _enterteening!_" Enterteening expressing his idea of
the effect produced.

_Pig_, in old-fashioned Scotch, was always used for a coarse earthenware
jar or vessel. In the Life of the late Patrick Tytler, the amiable and
gifted historian of Scotland, there occurs an amusing exemplification of
the utter confusion of ideas caused by the use of Scottish phraseology.
The family, when they went to London, had taken with them an old
Scottish servant who had no notion of any terms beside her own. She came
in one day greatly disturbed at the extremely backward state of
knowledge of domestic affairs amongst the Londoners. She had been to so
many shops and could not get "a great broon pig to haud the butter in."

From a relative of the family I have received an account of a still
worse confusion of ideas, caused by the inquiry of a Mrs. Chisholm of
Chisholm, who died in London in 1825, at an advanced age. She had come
from the country to be with her daughter, and was a genuine Scottish
lady of the old school. She wished to purchase a table-cloth of a cheque
pattern, like the squares of a chess or draught board. Now a
draught-board used to be called (as I remember) by old Scotch people a
"dam[61] brod[62]." Accordingly, Mrs. Chisholm entered the shop of a
linen-draper, and asked to be shown table-linen a _dam-brod pattern_