64/196 (Thomson's Acts of Parliament of Scotland, vol.i.); and it enacts very stringent measures against such persons. They seem to have formed a link between the helpless idiot and the boisterous madman, sharing the eccentricity of the latter and the stupidity of the former, generally adding, however, a good deal of the sharp-wittedness of the _knave_. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century this appears to have been still an appendage to some families. I have before me a little publication with the title, "The Life and Death of Jamie Fleeman, the Laird of Udny's Fool. |