Now, the Highlands, though formerly a rich mine for original
matter, are, as my friend Mrs. Bethune Baliol warned me, in some
degree worn out by the incessant labour of modern romancers and
novelists, who, finding in those remote regions primitive habits
and manners, have vainly imagined that the public can never tire
of them; and so kilted Highlanders are to be found as frequently,
and nearly of as genuine descent, on the shelves of a circulating
library, as at a Caledonian ball. Much might have been made at
an earlier time out of the history of a Highland regiment, and
the singular revolution of ideas which must have taken place in
the minds of those who composed it, when exchanging their native
hills for the battle-fields of the Continent, and their simple,
and sometimes indolent domestic habits for the regular exertions
demanded by modern discipline. But the market is forestalled.
There is Mrs. Grant of Laggan, has drawn the manners, customs,
and superstitions of the mountains in their natural
unsophisticated state; [Letters from the Mountains, 3 vols.--
Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders--The Highlanders,
and other Poems, etc.
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