n under the general term
of Scotticisms, bear directly upon the question of a past intercourse
with France, and prove how close at one time must have been the
influence exercised upon general habits in Scotland by that intercourse.
Scoto-Gallic words were quite differently situated from French words and
phrases adopted in England. With us they proceeded from a real
admixture of the two _peoples_. With us they form the ordinary common
language of the country, and that was from a distant period moulded by
French. In England, the educated and upper classes of late years
_adopted_ French words and phrases. With us, some of our French
derivatives are growing obsolete as vulgar, and nearly all are passing
from fashionable society. In England, we find the French-adopted words
rather receiving accessions than going out of use.

Examples of words such as we have referred to, as showing a French
influence and admixture, are familiar to many of my readers. I recollect
some of them in constant use amongst old-fashioned Scottish people, and
those terms, let it be remembered, are unknown in England.

A leg of mutton was always, with old-fashioned Scotch people, a gigot
(Fr. gigot).

The crystal jug or decanter in which water is placed upon the table, was
a caraff (Fr. carafe).

Gooseberries were groserts, or grossarts (Fr. groseille).

Partridges were pertricks,--a word much more formed upon the French
perdrix than the English partridge.

The plate on which a joint or side-dish was placed upon the table was an
ashet (Fr. assiette).

In the old streets of Edinburgh, where the houses are very high, and
where the inhabitants all live in flats, before the introduction of
soil-pipes there was no method of disposing of the foul water of the
household, except by throwing it out of the window into the street. This
operation, dangerous to those outside, was limited to certain hours, and
the well-known cry, which preceded the missile and warned the
passenger, was gardeloo! or, as Smollett writes it, gardy loo (Fr. garge
de l'eau).

Anything troublesome or irksome used to be called, Scottice, fashions
(Fr. facheux, facheuse); to fash one's-self (Fr. se facher).

The small cherry, both black and red, common in gardens, is in Scotland,
never in England, termed gean (Fr. guigne), from Guigne, in Picardy.

The term _dambrod_, which has already supplied materials for a good
story, arises from adopting French terms into Scottish language,