Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Scotland
Give me but one hour of Scotland,
Let me see it ere I die.
Wm. E. Aytoun—Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers—Charles Edward at Versailles. L. 111.
Hear, Land o’ Cakes and brither Scots
Frae Maiden Kirk to Johnny Groat’s.
Burns—On Capt. Grose’s Peregrinations Thro’ Scotland.
O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent;
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content.
Burns—Cotter’s Saturday Night. St. 20.
It’s guid to be merry and wise,
It’s guid to be honest and true,
It’s guid to support Caledonia’s cause,
And bide by the buff and the blue!
Burns—Here’s a Health to Them that’s Awa’.
Only a few industrious Scots perhaps, who indeed are dispersed over the face of the whole earth. But as for them, there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England, when they are out on’t, in the world, than they are. And for my own part, I would a hundred thousand of them were there [Virginia] for we are all one countrymen now, ye know, and we should find ten times more comfort of them there than we do here.
Chapman—Eastward Ho. Act III. Sc. 2. Written by Chapman, Jonson, Marston. James I was offended at the reflexion on Scotchmen and the authors were threatened with imprisonment. Extract now found only in a few editions.
The Scots are poor, cries surly English pride;
True is the charge, nor by themselves denied.
Are they not then in strictest reason clear,
Who wisely come to mend their fortunes here?
Churchill—Prophecy of Famine. L. 195.
The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high-road that leads him to England.
Samuel Johnson—Bowell’s Life of Johnson. Vol. II. Ch. V. 1763.
In all my travels I never met with any one Scotchman but what was a man of sense. I believe everybody of that country that has any, leaves it as fast as they can.
Francis Lockier—Scotchmen.
O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e’er untie the filial band,
That knits me to thy rugged strand!
Scott—Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto VI. St. 2.
It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding.
Sydney Smith—Lady Holland’s Memoir. Vol. I. P. 15.
That knuckle-end of England—that land of Calvin, oat-cakes, and sulphur.
Sydney Smith—Lady Holland’s Memoir. Vol. II. P. 17.
Now the summer’s in prime
Wi’ the flowers richly blooming,
And the wild mountain thyme
A’ the moorlands perfuming.
To own dear native scenes
Let us journey together,
Where glad innocence reigns
’Mang the braes o’ Balquhither.
Robert Tannahill—The Braes o’ Balquhither.
In short, he and the Scotch have no way of redeeming the credit of their understandings, but by avowing that they have been consummate villains. Stavano bene; per star meglio, stanno qui.
Horace Walpole—To the Rev. William Mason. Aug. 2, or 6, 1778.