Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Language, Nationalism, Cultural Geography, Human Species, Human Development, Animal Behaviour

    Discusses a report of John S Blackie's recent lecture on the 'nationality and character' of the Scots. Notes ascription by James Burnett (Lord Monboddo) of 'tails to aboriginal Scots, in common with the rest of mankind'. Reports that Blackie has reduced the Scot to a lower level, considering him to be an 'animal' with several characteristics, including 'working', being 'enterprising and adventurous', 'practical and utilitarian', and 'earnest, serious, devout, and religious'. Concludes by opining that 'Calvinism was the religion of a brute' and anticipates that a Cockney might characterise the Scot as 'an animal ordained by nature to graze on the prickly herbage of the Land of Thistles'.