A.D. 1594.—At the Battle of Balrinnes, a witch who accompanied the Earl of Argyll referred in a prediction to the bagpipe as the principal military instrument of the Scottish mountaineers. A.D. 1597.—In a court case at Stirling in 1597 we are told that “W. Stewart brought into the kirkyard twa or three pyperis, and thereby drew in grit nowmer of people to dans befoir the kirk dur on tyme of prayeris, he being always the ringleader himself.” Mr. Stewart must have had peculiar ideas of the fitness of things. A.D. 1598.—An unpublished poem by Rev. Alex. Hume, minister of Logie, about 1598, contains the lines:— “Caus michtilie the warlie nottes brake On Heiland pipes, Scottes and Hyberniche.” So at this date there was a difference between the Highland pipes, the Lowland, and the Hibernian. The instrument was, in fact, becoming recognised as peculiar to the Highlands, in the one specific form at least. A.D. 1601.—In 1601 Moryson, the traveller, visiting Ireland during a rebellion, says that “near Armagh a strong body of insurgents approached the camp of regulars with cries and sounds of drummers and bagpipes as if they would storm the camp. After that our men had given them a volley in their teeth, they drew away, and we heard no more of their drummers and bagpipes, but only mournful cries, for many of their best men were slain.” A.D. 1617.—When James I. came to Scotland in 1617 and decorated Holyrood with images of many kinds, he did not clear out the bagpipes from the Palace, jokingly remarking that as they had some relation to the organ they might remain. A.D. 1623.—Playing on the “great pipe” was a charge made against a piper at Perth in 1623. The term great pipe would seem to indicate that the instrument was evolved from a previous kind, and is an argument in favour of the theory that the pipes were not “introduced” into Scotland, but are of native origin, and have been gradually developed up to their present condition. A.D. 1650.—“Almost every town hath bagpipes in it,” says a writer of the year 1650. A.D. 1653.—In 1653 a woman pleaded for exemption from censure because “English soldiers brought over a piper with them and did dance in her house.” That, she thought, was sufficient excuse for any shortcomings in the management of her household. A.D. 1662.—A Kirkcaldy man, who shot his father in 1662, sought liquor from an acquaintance to help to wile away his melancholy, and “there comes a piper, and this wretched man went and did dawnce.” The music evidently was enough to dispel all the terrors of the law. A.D. 1700.—About the beginning of the nineteenth century the big drone was added to the bagpipe, distinguishing it henceforth from the Lowland and Northumbrian. A.D. 1741.—On a political occasion in 1741 the Magistrates of Dingwall were welcomed home by the ringing of bells, “while young and old danced to the bagpipe, violin, and Jewish harp.” Rather a curious medley they would make.