The following anecdote, supplied by Mr. Blair, is an amusing
illustration both of the funeral propensity, and of the working of a
defective brain, in a half-witted carle, who used to range the province
of Galloway armed with a huge pike-staff, and who one day met a funeral
procession a few miles from Wigtown. A long train of carriages, and
farmers riding on horse-back, suggested the propriety of his bestriding
his staff, and following after the funeral. The procession marched at a
brisk pace, and on reaching the kirk-yard style, as each rider
dismounted, "Daft Jock" descended from his wooden steed, besmeared with
mire and perspiration, exclaiming, "Hech, sirs, had it no been for the
fashion o' the thing, I micht as weel hae been on my ain feet."

The withdrawal of these characters from public view, and the loss of
importance which they once enjoyed in Scottish society, seem to me
inexplicable. Have they ceased to exist, or are they removed from our
sight to different scenes? The fool was, in early times, a very
important personage in most Scottish households of any distinction.
Indeed this had been so common as to be a public nuisance.

It seemed that persons _assumed_ the character, for we find a Scottish
Act of Parliament, dated 19th January 1449, with this title:--"Act for
the way-putting of _Fenyent_ Fules," etc. (Thomson's Acts of Parliament
of Scotland, vol. i.); and it enacts very stringent measures against
such persons. They seem to have formed a link between the helpless idiot
and the boisterous madman, sharing the eccentricity of the latter and
the stupidity of the former, generally adding, however, a good deal of
the sharp-wittedness of the _knave_. Up to the middle of the eighteenth
century this appears to have been still an appendage to some families. I
have before me a little publication with the title, "The Life and Death
of Jamie Fleeman, the Laird of Udny's Fool. Tenth edition. Aberdeen,
1810." With portrait. Also twenty-sixth edition, of 1829. I should
suppose this account of a family fool was a fair representation of a
good specimen of the class. He was evidently of defective intellect, but
at times showed the odd humour and quick conclusion which so often mark
the disordered brain. I can only now give two examples taken from his
history:--Having found a horse-shoe on the road, he met Mr. Craigie, the
minister of St. Fergus, and showed it to him, asking, in pretended
ignorance, what it was. "Why, Jam