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98
GUY MANNERING.
CHAPTER VII.
Come, princes of the ragged regiment,
You of the blood! Prigg, my most upright lord,
And these, what name or title e'er they bear,
Jarkman, or Patrico, Cranke or Clapper-dudgeon,
Frater or Abram-man–I speak of all.
Although the character of those gypsy tribes, which formerly inundated most of the nations of Europe, and which in some degree still subsist among them as a distinct people, is generally understood, the reader will pardon my saying a few words respecting their situation in Scotland.
It is well known that the gypsies were, at an early period, acknowledged as a separate and independent race by one of the Scottish monarchs, and that they were less favourably distinguished by a subse-
