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Star (Christchurch), Issue 6649, 13 September 1889, Page 2

Thk Old Scottish Lifb Guabds. — Mr David Macßitchie, of Edinburgh, writing to Notes and Queries, eaye : — v According to Sir Walter Scott, the trumpeters of the Scottish Life Guards in the seventeenth century were negroes. In * Old Mortality,' Sergeant BothwelL, obeying Clarerhouse'B command to ' sound to horse' at the Tower of Tillietudlem, 'hastened to give order to six negroes, in white dresses richly laced, and having massive silver collars and armlets. These sable functionaries acted as trumpeters, and speedily made the castle and the woods around it ring with their Bummonß.' Hogarth, again, in portraying the freak of George Buchanan (when adhering to the letter of the King's command that he should ' never let him see his face again,' he, notwithstanding, made himself conspicuously visible at an upper window as the King rode by), places a trumpeter or herald on either 'side of the central group at the window, both of which trumpeters are black men. Their features are not at all those of negroes. Their attire, except that they have cockades in their hats, seema to be exactly similar to that of the King himself, or- of .the gentlemen in the room beside them. But the painter distinctly makes themJblack, or at least dark-Bkinned men, of quite a different complexion from the onlookers. I shall feeLobliged to any reader who will explain why Hogarth and Scott should agree in depicting official trnmpetergofcth&antMnth andaerontfleath B cflntairie3 J ji^MimiteMljuidfly-'M TWfiOaofrilflricj