Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

14 HIGHLAND HOUSES.
good housewives know. Even the Cockneys need not
affect to despise the Highlanders for their want of chim-
neys: the fashion is not very ancient in England. " Old
men," says Hollinshed, who is a very good chronicle of
the times if not a very brief one, " noticed the multitude
of chimneys lately erected," "whereas, in their young
days, there were not above two or three, if so many, in
most uplandish towns of the realm." The progress can
be traced now in this country, just as it crept on in
England; at least when things are left to take their na-
tural course. The fire in the middle of the house is first
transferred to the gable ; a canopy with a chimney is
next placed over it; those who formerly sat near the fire,
then sit within the fire place ; in progress of time, this is
contracted so as to exclude them ;
and, lastly, this event-
ful history ends in Carron grates and Bath stoves and
registers, in bright brass and brighter steel, the pride of
housewives, the dread of chilly guests, and the torment
of housemaids.
To compensate the artist, however, for the bistre
within, though the roofs and the walls generally bear a
plentiful crop of grass, corn, and weeds, which sounds
picturesque enough, they offer no consolation for his
drawings. No human art can possibly represent a High-
land cottage so as to render it a picturesque object. If
alone, it is a shapeless pile of stones and turf: if congre-
gated into a town, that looks like a heap of dunghills or
peat-stacks. Were it not for the occasional wreath of
blue smoke, a southern traveller would never suspect
their presence at a small distance. Hence the unfortu-
nate artist in Highland landscape is deprived of the aid
which is elsewhere afforded him by the infinite varieties
of rural architecture ; of the life and interest which
human habitations bestow on a picture ; and of that source