Boston Public Library - Electric Scotland

STATEMENT OF MACAULAY. 11
In speaking of the differences between the races, he says:
"Much, however, must still have been left to the healing
influence of time. The native race would still have had to
learn from the colonists industry and forethought, the arts
of civilized life, and the language of England. There could
not be equality between men who lived in houses and men
who lived in sties ; between men who were fed on bread and
between men who spoke the
men who were fed on potatoes ;
noble tongue of great philosophers and poets and men who,
with perverted pride, boasted that they could not writhe
their mouths into chattering such a jargon as that in which
the 'Advancement of Learning' and the 'Paradise Lost' were
written." ^
And again, speaking of Scotland, from which the Scotch
of Ireland came, he says: "The population of Scotland, with
the exception of the Celtic tribes, which were thinly scattered
over the Hebrides and over the mountainous shires, was of
the same blood with the population of England, and spoke a
tongue which did not differ from the purest English more
than the dialects of Somersetshire and Lancastershire differ
from each other." ^
Such being the relative condition of the two classes, as elo-
quently described by the great English historian,
height of absurdity to claim that the blood of the distinct
it is the
races was commingled except in isolated cases. Tliey did
not commingle. The Scotch, planted upon Irish soil, were
Scotch still, and the Irish were Irish still. The Scotch took
their language with them, and the dialect of the Lowlands
fell upon the startled air and disturbed the mists arising from
the peat-fields of the Emerald Isle. Their dialect liveAl in
Ireland, was transplanted to American shores, and in all the
New Hampshire and American settlements was understood
and spoken for more than a hundred years after their settlement
upon American soil. Letters were written in it ; and
many poems by Robert Dinsmoor, " The Rustic Bard," in a
printed volume, are written in the Lowland-Scotch dialect.
Though it has now almost entirely disappeared, being sup-
I have heard the
planted by the purer English tongue, yet
rich brogue in the Scotch settlement in New Hampshire, and
in the older Scotch settlements in Ireland, and know numerous
families in New Hampshire, of Scotch blood, who since
their coming to these shores one hundred and seventy-five
years ago have not intermarried save with people of the same
race, and they are of as pure Scotch blood and descent as
1
Macaulay's History of England.