of each cost twopence less. In 1639, French wine was sold in Edinburgh at fourpence the chopin. Brandy was more in vogue than whisky, though by the end of the century it was regarded by some as producing corruption of morals and debility of constitution. Tea drinking became common about 1720. In 1705, green tea was sold in Edinburgh by George Scott, goldsmith, at 16s., and Bohea at 30s. the pound. Medical men regarded it with disfavour; others regarded it as an expensive unpleasant drug. Though the precise time of its introduction among us,' Mr. Ramsay writes, 'cannot be ascertained, yet all our old people agree that it made rapid progress after the year, and before the Rebellion of 1745 it was the common breakfast in most gentlemen's families.' By old-fashioned people, however, he tells us, it was very ill-relished. They either rejected it altogether or required a little brandy to qualify it. In 1744, the Fullarton tenants passed the following resolution against its use:- We, being all farmers by profession, think it needless to restrain ourselves formally from indulging in that foreign and consumptive luxury called tea; for when we consider the slender constitutions of many of the higher rank amongst whom it is used, we conclude that it would be an improper diet to qualify us for the more robust and manly parts of our business; and, therefore, we shall give our testimony against, and leave the enjoyment of it altogether to those who can afford to be weak, indolent, and useless.'* During the first half of the century, another beverage seems to have been gaining ground, though probably not then like tea introduced for the first time. This was gin, which went under the names of English brandy,' 'British spirits,' 'ginn,' and 'Geneva.' In 1742, the Town Council of Stirling, at the instance of the maltsters and distillers of the burgh, denounced its use as pernicious and destructive,' and ordered a duty of 12s. Scots to be levied upon every Scots pint of it brought into or found in the burgh. Twelve years before that, however, the Convention of Royal Burghs had had under their consideration' the many pernicious effects of the clandestine importation and open and excessive consumption of brandy within * Hewat's Little Scots' World, 127. Scotland. They complained also of the large sums of money which were yearly exported for the purchase of this unnecessary commodity' to the injury of the home distillers and of the revenue, and resolved to use all diligence and all lawful means to stop the importation of brandy and foreign spirits,' of which gin was one. The dress of the gentry of the period was usually plain and homely, and of coarse material. It resembled in some particulars,' says Ramsay, 'their domestic economy.' 'At home, or even at kirk or market, a gentleman,' writes Mr. Graham, 'went about in homespun clothing and home made woollen shirts, which had been spun by his wife, family, or servants, and woven by the village "wabster." The testimony of Taylor, the Water Poet, and others is to the same effect. On occasions, however, such as marriages, christenings, and funerals, the laird, who went about at home in the morning with greasy night-cap, coat out at elbows, or dirty night or dressing gown, would appear in all the glory of silk stockings, gold or silver laced coat and waistcoat, jack-boots, wig, and laced three cornered hat. The coats had enormously wide sleeves, and the skirts of them were stiffened with buckram, in order to make them stick out. Hats were a sign of respectability or of official dignity. In 1712 the Town Council of Lanark, considering how decent and becoming it would be at their conventions that each Councillor wear a hatt for the credit of this place and of themselves, as representatives of this burgh,' ordained that in future every Councillor when attending Council should wear a 'hatt,' under a penalty of one pund ten shillings toties quoties.' By the Town Council of Paisley an act similar to this had been passed almost a century before.† Later on in the century (1743), as we learn from the Town Council Records of Aberdeen, it had been 'for some time past the practice of the principall citys of this nation that the provost of the city should wear black velvet cloathing. The Council therefore ordained that the provost of this city should be cloathed in all times coming with black velvet, mounted with a gold button or not, as the provost for the time 6 * Records, V., 511. + MS. Records of Town Council, 1617. should incline.' As the drummers and other officials of this northern city wore their official hats, we may assume that the provost and town councillors did the same. The usual head covering, however, was the bonnet. At home, or when visiting neighbours on an easy footing, the dress of the ladies was plain and frugal, 'stuffs of their own spinning, or what was only a few degrees more showy being the common dress of those who occasionally figured in the best company.' Dressmaking was the principal amusement of gentlemen's daughters of moderate fortune when disengaged from household cares. * At the time of the Union, the same writer says, 'the attire of ladies of rank and fortune was perhaps as showy and expensive as at present. Upon occasions of great ceremony it consisted of a manteau and petticoat of silk or velvet, with a silk scarf. The cost of those gowns was no doubt out of proportion to their other economics, but two or three of them served a lifetime. Neither was it necessary to make annual alterations or additions, for in these days finery did not wear out of fashion; and within the last forty or fifty years, when considerable changes had taken place, the daughters of gentlemen of four or five thousand merks a year thought themselves well off before marriage with a single silk gown, and perhaps, by way of reserve, one of their mother's. Even the ladies of Edinburgh, who attended assemblies and other public places, were but moderately provided with fine clothes.'t These last, however, made a fine show, as may be gathered from Mr. Graham's clever description of the streets of Edinburgh in the early afternoons: 'There were ladies in gigantic hoops sweeping the sides of the causeway, their head and shoulders covered with thin gray silken plaids, scarlet and green, their faces with complexions heightened by patches, and concealed by black velvet masks, which were held close by a string, whose buttoned end was held by the teeth. In their hands they bore huge green paper fans to ward off the sun, by their side hung little bags which held the snuff they freely used; their feet shod in red shoes, with heels three inches high, with which they tripped nimbly on the steep decline and over filthy places. There were stately old ladies, with their pattens on feet and canes in hand, walking with precision and dignity; judges with their wigs on head and hats under their arm; advocates in their gowns on their way to the Courts and Parliament House; ministers in their blue or gray coats, bands, wigs, and three-cornered hats.' Plaids were in universal use except where the new-fashioned scarf was affected. They were of all colours, scarlet, crimson, green, etc., but commonly tartan or variegated. Some were made of silk, others of wool lined with silk; among the lower classes they were made of plain worsted. And a great trouble they were both to kirk sessions and Town Councils, the former forbidding them to be worn over the head in church and the latter forbidding them to be worn in the same fashion at markets.* At the beginning of the century milliners and mantua makers were rare. In 1752, there were only five or six of the former in Edinburgh. About the same time Dundee could boast of two milliners and mantua makers, who, with the aid of Mr. Durham, the lank tailor (in the mantua making line),' did all the millinery and mantua making business in Dundee.† For a good way into the century, indeed, the Tailor Craft had a monopoly of making clothes for women as well as for men, and female dress and mantua makers were few. At times they were allowed to practise the art on payment of certain fees to the Deacon or Masters of the Tailor Craft; as, for instance, at Glasgow in 1735; but at other times they were forbidden. In 1744, the Tailor Craft of Glasgow not only withdrew their permission to certain women to carry on the trade of dressmaking, they also forbade any freeman of the trade in all time coming' to teach or cause to teach any woman or girl any part of the Taylor Trade, under the penalty of a new upsett and dischargeing of their work without payment.' The Tailor Crafts of other towns were equally jealous of their rights, and widows attempting to make a living by dressmaking were in some places summarily put down. The provisions made for education were not ideal, but considering the times they were fair, and the education given was sound and practical. Generally speaking, Mr. Graham's chapter on Schools and Schoolmasters is excellent, but its tone is a little pessimistic. He traverses Kirton's view of the state of education in the seventeenth century, but like the seventeenth century divine, Mr. Graham, we venture to think, has generalised from inadequate data. His estimate of the education given is based more upon a nineteenth century ideal than upon what was required or possible at the beginning, middle, or end of the eighteenth century. No doubt there were districts in which schools were rare, but there were others in which they existed. No doubt, too, the Report of the Commission of 1696 shows that when the report was drawn up education was in a bad way, but there is ample indication that soon after it was issued a general movement for reform set in. One generalisation in this connection strikes us as somewhat peculiar. Speaking of education, the remark is made 'Everything publicspirited was done or urged by the Sessions.' We do not know that the Kirk Sessions of the period were in any degree more 'public-spirited' than any other official body. They were the local courts entrusted with the care of education and in urging on Town Councils and heritors the necessity for providing sufficient means for the education of the young, they were simply discharging their statutory duty. If, again, Presbyteries 'insisted on the law being carried out requiring schools in every parish, they did this, not for the sake of secular education, but of religion,' they were simply acting according to the spirit, or at any rate the apparent spirit, of the law and custom of the country. Down from the time of James VI., as is set forth in statutes and foundation charters of Grammar Schools, religion or the promotion of religion is always referred to as the chief aim of education and the institution of schools. The places assigned for schoolrooms were often wretched. Even in a city like St. Andrews the complaint was made in 1725, that the place in which the school was held was such that 'the boys cannot sit for learning to wreate, so that they are necessitated to wreate upon the floor lying upon their bellies.' Sometimes a family vault, a granary, a byre, a stable, a barn, or any dilapidated hovel was used. In one place the thatched |