Till within the last few years, these unfortunate persons were more frequently to be found in their respective villages throughout the country than now; and it is not long since even Edinburgh could boast of her “_Daft Laird_,” her “_Bailie Duff_,” and her “_Madam Bouzie_.” Numerous charitable institutions now seclude most of them from the world. Yet, in many retired districts, where delicacy is not apt to be shocked by sights so common, the blind, the dumb, and the insane are still permitted to mix indiscriminately with their fellow-creatures. Poverty compels many parents to take the easiest method of supporting their unfortunate offspring—that of bringing them up with the rest of the family; the decent pride of the Scottish peasant also makes an application to charity, even in such a case as this, a matter of very rare occurrence; and while superstition points out that those whom God has sent into the world with less than the full share of mental faculties are always made most peculiarly the objects of this care, thus rendering the possession of such a child rather a medium through which the blessings of heaven are diffused than a burden or a curse, the affectionate desire of administering to them all those tender offices which their unhappy situation so peculiarly requires, of tending them with their own eyes, and nursing them with their own hands, that large and overflowing, but not supererogatory share of tenderness with which the darkened and destitute objects are constantly regarded by parents—altogether make their domestication a matter of strong, and happily not unpleasing necessity. The rustic idiots of Scotland are also in general blessed with a few peculiarities, which seldom fail to make them objects of popular esteem and affection. Many of them exhibit a degree of sagacity or cunning, bearing the same relation to the rest of their intellectual faculties which, in the ruins of a Grecian temple, the coarse and entire foundations bear to the few and scattered but beautiful fragments of the superstructure. This humble qualification, joined sometimes to the more agreeable one of a shrewd and sly humour, while it enables them to keep their own part, and occasionally to baffle sounder judgments, proves an engaging subject of amusement and wonder to the cottage fireside. A wild and wayward fancy, powers of song singularly great, together with a full share of the above qualifications, formed the chief characteristics of Daft Jock Gray of Gilmanscleugh, whom we are about to introduce to the reader as the counterpart of Davie Gellatley.