We must now look for specimens of this racy and expressive tongue in the more retired parts of the country.

It is no longer to be found in high places.

It has disappeared from the social circles of our cities.

I cannot, however, omit calling my reader's attention to a charming specimen of Scottish prose and of Scottish humour of our own day, contained in a little book, entitled "_Mystifications_" by Clementina Stirling Graham.

The scenes described in that volume are matters of pleasing reminiscence, and to some of us who still remain "will recall that blithe and winning face, sagacious and sincere, that kindly, cheery voice, that rich and quiet laugh, that mingled sense and sensibility, which met, and still to our happiness meet, in her who, with all her gifts, never gratified her consciousness of these powers so as to give pain to any human being[53]." These words, written more than ten years ago, might have been penned yesterday; and those who, like myself, have had the privilege of seeing the authoress presiding in her beautiful mansion of Duntrune, will not soon forget how happy, how gracious, and how young, old age may be.
"No fears to beat away--no strife to heal; The past unsighed for, and the future sure." In my early days the intercourse with the peasantry of Forfarshire, Kincardineshire, and especially Deeside, was most amusing--not that the things said were so much out of the common, as that the language in which they were conveyed was picturesque, and odd, and taking.