The pipes awarded as prizes at competitions under the auspices of the Highland Society of London are almost always of cocoa wood, having armorial bearings and a silver plate inscribed with the name of the successful competitor. The bagpipe is the result of an evolution process, and if this process continues we may yet see it further improved, and the instrument made so that it will commend itself not only to Highlanders themselves, but to lovers of music generally. A great deal of the prejudice against the pipes is, however, caused by the ignorance of their critics, and perhaps if people criticised less and understood more we would not hear so much of the shortcomings of the instrument. CHAPTER V. WITH AN EAR TO THE DRONE. “What needs there be sae great a fraise Wi’ dringing, dull, Italian lays; I wadna gie our ain strathspeys For half a hunder score o’ them; They’re dowf and dowie at the best, Dowf and dowie, dowf and dowie, Dowf and dowie at the best, [Wi’ a’ their variorum;] [They’re dowf and dowie at the best,] Their _allegros_ an’ a’ the rest. They canna please a Scottish taste Compared with Tullochgorum.” Dr. Johnson—Inspiration of Scottish music—Professor Blackie—Highland music simple—Scottish airs once Highland—Age of Highland music— Capability of the bagpipe—How it has suffered—Peculiarities of the pibroch—Pipe music not fitted for inside—How it troubled the pressman—Chevalier Neukomm—Professor Blackie again—A Chicago jury’s opinion—An ode to the pipes. Dr. Johnson, who was in several ways a bundle of contradictions, found at least one thing in Scotland that he enjoyed. When on his tour through the Hebrides, he was on various occasions entertained by the bagpipe music of his host’s piper, and he liked nothing better than to stand behind the performer and hold the big drone close to his ear while the instrument was in full blast. He was not so affected as some of his country men and women nowadays, who say the sound of the drone is unpleasant, forgetting, or ignorant of, the fact that it is simply the bass A of their fine church organs sounded continuously by a reed on a wind instrument. But to them the organ is refined and represents culture, while the bagpipe is the barbarous instrument of a barbarous people, whose chief end is to act as custodians of a part of the country that provides good sport after the Twelfth, but is best forgotten all the rest of the year. So they scoff at the national music and the national instrument of Scotland, with the spirit of prejudice, half affected, half real, which induces John Bull to deny his neighbour north of the Tweed the possession of any good thing. And besides, as Gilbert says:—