The name of the first recorded inhabitant of Inverness (A.D. 1200) is Geoffrey Blount, a feudal warrior no doubt (French _blond_). In the thirteenth century we have the names _Noreys_, _Grant_, and _Hay_. In the fourteenth century the leading name is Pilch, derived from _peluche_, the French for "plush." In the fifteenth century, _Reid_, _Vaus_, and _Cuthbert_ are prominent citizens. _Vaus_ is said to mean "of the vales," _i.e._, _de Vallibus_; _Reid_ is Scotch for "red"; and _Cuthbert_ is pure Lowland. Evidently the leading men were aliens and interlopers. CHAPTER II. MUSIC, SPEECHES, AND LITERATURE. Scotch a reading nation--Hardships of students in old days--Homer in Scalloway--When education ends--Objects of chapter--Music--M.P.'s--Rural depopulation--Its causes--Emigration--Village halls--The moon--A lecture in Islay--Mental and material wealth--Real greatness--A Highland laird on literature--Varieties of chairmen--"Coming to the point"--Moral obligation--Compliment to Paisley--Oratory at Salen--Lecture in a dungeon--Surprises--A visit to the Borders--Tarbolton--Scotch language--Choice books--The essayists--A Banff theory--Goldsmith in Gaelic--_Biblia abiblia_--Favourites for the road--Horace--Shakespeare's Sonnets--Xenophon--French literature and journalism--Romance and Augustanism--Victorian writers--Celt and Saxon. SCOTCH A READING NATION. I think it was Mr. Holyoake, the veteran lecturer, who, in a volume of reminiscences, declared he found the audiences in Scotland more intelligent than elsewhere. I cannot draw such comparisons, for I have not spoken often south of the Tweed; this I can say with assurance, however, that no one need hesitate to address an audience of Scotch peasants on a topic of literary interest. Predestination and such religious trifles may stir them to disrespectful heat, but pure literature invariably draws forth their cool and critical attention. Probably no nation has ever devoted so much attention to books, and, as the result of this characteristic, Scotland, considering its size and population, has produced far more than its proportion of eminent men. At the Reformation epoch, when the comforts of a Lowland cottage would be little in advance of those in a present-day Uist croft, writers like George Buchanan and his fellows of the _Deliciæ Poetarum Scotorum_ made the excellence of Scotch scholarship known in every university of Europe. Buchanan was really a typical Caledonian man of genius--open-eyed, sagacious, patriotic, and cosmopolitan--and I can strongly recommend the occasional perusal of his Latin Psalms to all modern readers who wish to keep their feelings of reverence fresh and prevent their Latin quantities from getting amorphous. HARDSHIPS OF STUDENTS IN OLD DAYS.