“Whilst refinement is rapidly spreading over Scotland, it is to be lamented that anyone should prevent the barbarous music of the country from yielding to instruments more agreeable to the ear. The bagpipe is among the few remaining barbarisms in Scotland.... It is a sorry instrument, capable of little more than making an intolerable noise. Every person of taste and feeling must regret the decline of the harp and be shocked at its having been succeeded by the bagpipe.... I shall never forget a playing competition in Edinburgh at which I was present. As soon as the prize judges were seated the folding doors opened. A Highland piper entered in full tartan array, and began to press from the bag of his pipes, which were decorated with long pieces of riband, sounds so loud and horrible that to my imagination they were comparable only to those of the eternally tormented. In this manner he strutted up and down with the most stately march, and occasionally enraptured his audience, who expressed the influence of his instrument by loud and continued plaudits. For my part, so wretched is the instrument to my ears that I could not discover any difference in regard to expression between ‘The Gathering of the Mac Donalds’ and ‘Abercrombie’s Lament,’ each sound being to me equally depressive, discordant, and horrible.... I believe that it might have been three hours that common politeness compelled me to endure the distraction of this trial of skill, and I left the room with nearly the same sensations with which I should have quitted a belfry on a royal birthday.... One of these barbarous musicians, attempting in a fit of enthusiasm to pipe over eighteen miles of ground, blew the breath out of his body. It would have been well if he had been the last of his race.” In conclusion he addresses “Lines to the Caledonian Harp,” and in passing gives a final kick to the bagpipe— “No Highland echo knows thee now; A savage has usurped thy place, Once filled by thee with every grace— Th’ inflated pipe, with swinish drone, Calls forth applauses once thine own.” We have also the testimony of a Jew, who was compelled, by the heavy hand of misfortune, to wander in the Highlands, and in 1828 formed his impressions into a book which he called _The Jew Exile_. He praises the people for their hospitality, but alas! for their music. When leaving the village of Strathglass he says he was, in compliment, preceded by a young piper in real Highland style:—