fmall pulfe, yet from it the health, or ficknefs, of the whole body may be gathered with confiderable certainty.

"In Scotland, at the period now under review, the people were flowly advancing from barbarifm towards civilization. A peace of fome duration had taken place before the acceflion of the house of Stuart; and the confequent intercourfe with England, a country then rapidly progrellive in the arts of life, muft have increafed the national energy. Yet the feudal fetters continued to be firmly rivetted every man was the foldier, or the menial attendant of his chief; and flocks, herds, agriculture afforded only fubfervient occupations. While the fingle fcience of the great was war, their fole amufement hunting, their chief magnificence a numerous train, it is no wonder that the poor were ferocious and idle, fecure during health of a maintenance from their lords, and in fickness of monaftic charity. Courage, honefty, franknefs, attachment to their chiefs, conftituted the chief virtues of the peafantry; temperance, and fobriety were the virtues of the foil: fpirituous liquors, that bane of the poor, were as yet unknown in Europe, except among the ftores of the phyfician. Nor had religious fanaticifm, that unintermitting intoxication, yet poifoned the popular mind with habitual gloom: the poor chiefly knew the chriftian religion from its charity, from the public exhortations of the preaching friars, and from the gay exhibitions of the Roman catholic fyftem.

Molto è el pacfe alpestro e peregrino, E ha la gente ruvida e felvatica. 'Mountainous and range is the coun try,

And the people rough and favage.'

The

"The long and fevere ordinances of Robert II. against murderers, and their receivers and fupporters, afford a proof that this charge was not unfounded. And the orders to the army, not to pillage their own countrymen, present another inftance of barbaric manners. Ketherani, Kerns, or marauding highlanders, by continual inroads into the low countries greatly ob ftructed the progress of induftry and civilization; and this inteftine evil, more pernicious than foreign inva fion, continued to a late period. Strangers to that induftry which excites the Swifs peafant to cultivate the precipice, and the Norwegian to derive that fupport from the fea which the land refufes, the highlanders fupplied their wants by ra pine: and the civil animofity was increased by the difference of origin, language, and manners; fo that the difficulties with which the government had to struggle, and the obftacles against order, were perhaps greater in Scotland than in any other European kingdom. The example of Henry II. of England, who planted a Flemish colony in Wales, efcaped the obfervation, or exceeded the power, of our monarchs: and the complete tranfpofition of the population of a province, though an expedient far from unknown to the Perfians, Greeks, and Romans, appears to furpafs the wif dom, or the enterprize of any later government.

"Though the peafantry were in fact the flaves of their lords, by menial or by feudal bondage, yet few inftances occur of abfolute villanage; and it is believed no exam

ple

ple appears in our records, of an eftate fold with the farmers, labourers, and families, attached to the foil. The appellation bufbond, given to the Scotish farmers, feems indeed to imply that they were confidered as bond flaves of their lord's houfe, or as fixed to their own particular farm-houses; yet what little evidence remains teaches us to confider them rather as flaves in cuftom, than in law. The bufband lands, or farms, were divided into tillage and pafturage, were always fmall, and the farmers of courfe poor. The cotter who rears, his hovel of turf and ftraw, under an old thorn, and cultivates three or four acres of the common, would in these ages have been styled a farmer. Large farms undoubtedly advance agriculture; and perhaps the numerous labo irers employed are as ufeful and valuable members of fociety, as if each farmed a fmall portion of land.

66

With the acceffion of the house of Stuart, a stronger light begins to arife on the internal ftate of Scotland. Barbour wrote his celebrated poem in 1375; and in narrating the actions of Robert I. he prefents many pictures of the times and manners, the lapfe of half a century being imperceptible in the flow progrefs of civilization. But the curiofity of Froiffart a ftranger has preferved the ftrongest features: and his vifit to Scotland forms an epoch in the hiftory of national manners. From his account it appears that the French, themfelves regarded by the Italians as barbarians, fhuddered at the penury and barbarity of Scotland. Even in the Doulce Efcoche or low lands, (for the highlanders of la Sauvage Efcoche were confidered as we now do American favages,) a remarkable ignorance prevailed of the commoneft arts of life. The

"The English education of James I. contributed to the civilization of his kingdom. Yet even in his reign the picture by Enea Silvio, afterwards pope Pius II. is far from flattering. Concerning Scotland he found these things worthy of repetition. It is an ifland joined to England, ftretching two hundred miles to the north, and about fifty broad; a cold country, fertile of few forts of grain, and generally void of trees, but there is a faiphureous ftone dug up which is used for firing. The towns are unwalled, the houses commonly built without lime, and in villages roofed with turf, while a cow's hide fupplies the place of a door. The commonaky are poor and uneducated, have abundance of fleth and fifh, but eat bread as a dainty. men are small in ftature, but bold; the women fair and comely, and prone to the pleasures of love; kitfes being there efteemed of lefs confequence than preffing the hand is in Italy. The wine is all imported; the horfes are moftly fmall ambling nags, only a few being preferved entire for propagation, and neither curry-combs nor reins are ufed. The oysters are larger than in England. From Scotland are imported into Flanders hides, wool, falt fith, and pearls. Nothing gives the

The

Scots

Scots more pleasure than to hear the English difpraifed. The country is divided into two parts, the cultivat ed low-lands, and the region where agriculture is not ufed. The wild Scots have a different language, and fometimes eat the bark of trees. There are no wolves. Crows are new inhabitants, and therefore the tree in which they build becomes royal property. At the winter folftice, when the author was there, the day did not exceed four hours.' In another place, Silvio obferves that the fabulous tale of the barnacles, the invention of dreaming monks, had paffed from Scotland to the Orkneys: and that coals were given to the poor at the church doors, by way of alms, the country being denuded of wood.

"The vigorous adminiftration of James I. imparted tranquillity and happiness to the people; and was often regretted by them during the diftractions of the fubfequent reigns. Till this period the ftatutes were concealed from the nation in the darknefs of the Latin language; the good fenfe of this monarch ordered them to be iffued in the Sco.ith tongue, while in England the laws were to be dictated in Latin and French till the reign of Richard III. Thus religion, and law, the fole rules of popular conduct, were veiled from the people; but there is no abfurdity which man has not reduced to practice. The ftatutes of James are wifely ordained to advance civilization, and the fanguine theorift may exult in their effects; but they rather proclaim the intelligence of the monarch, and of his ecclefiaftic minifters, than the national advancement. Ordinances prepared in the cabinet by wife and good men, were paffed by the lo ds of the articles; while the peers and landholders, with

whom the jurifdiction lay, either did not attend, or voted with a fraile. And the frequent repetition of the fame laws, even fo late as the reigns of James IV. and V. confpires with the records of hiftory to convince us, that the ftatutes rather indicate the evils that did exift, than the remedy of thefe evils. The roots of national habits are too deep to be affected by the thunder of laws, the flow divulfion of education can alone explode them.

"Among the ftatutes of the first James, the following are the most pertinent to the prefent difcuffion. That no private wars be allowed; that none travel with more attendants than they maintain; that no fornars fhall force their refidence upon the clergy or farmers; that in burghs, and on high ways, inns be erected; and that no beggars be permitted, except diftinguithed by a badge importing the leave of the magiftrates: and the hofpitals for the poor and fick are ordered to be reformed. A remarkable law ordains, that all idle perfons, without means of livelihood, fhall be imprifoned, till they give fecurity, and fhall within forty days betake themfelves to fome fervice or craft. The trial of the causes of the poor is declared to be gratuitous.

"The inftitution of inns, repeatedly enforced, was perhaps calculated to fave the monafteries from the frequent intrufion of numerous guefts; but the neceflity of fuch laws indicates a radical defect in civilization. The first object of the Romans, after the conquest of a barbaric country, was to open high. ways through it; for on mutual and eafy intercourfe all civilization depends. Yet this firft and indifpenfable ftep is unknown in our ftatutes. Some regulations appear concerning ferries; but till within these

fifty years the roads in Scotland were hardly paffable. And while the Swifs cuts his way through the Alps, our mole hills in the highlands prefent infuperable barriers. The civilization of a country is always in exact proportion to the number, and condition, of its high ways. The omiffion of this one law was radical, and obftructed all the others.

"In the burghs a greater degree of civilization must have prevailed than the country; but the inhabitants of the burghs were few, compared with the general population. Froiffart eftimates the houfes in Edinburgh, then the capital, at four thoufand; they were fmall wooden cottages, covered with ftraw; for modern Edinburgh, with its houfes of ten or twelve ftories, cannot date higher than Mary's reign, when all the French cuftoms of Scotland really commenced. By a common calculation the inhabitants of the capital, in the reign of Robert II. hardly exceeded fixteen thousand.

"For fome unknown caufe, James I. prohibited the election of deacons of crafts; perhaps they abufed their power in exciting fedition; perhaps the genuine fpirit of a corporation began to operate in monopoly, and oppreffion. But a warden and council are ordered to regulate prices, the warden to be chofen by the council of the burgh, and not, as the deacons, by the craftsmen themfelves. Mafons, carpenters, fmiths, taylors, weavers, are the only trades mentioned in the ftatute.. The inftitution of corpora tions by patent feems unknown in Scotland, till the reign of James IV. the crafts embodied and regulated themselves; and the attention of government was hardly diverted to

them, except to prevent impofition. Theywould have charged for holidays, and undertaken more work than they could accomplith, while one craftíman would refufe the work neglected by another. The fole intention of these acts feems to have been to break the monopoly.

James I. has himself delineated. the manners of the common people, in his poem called Peblis to the Play. This play was probably an annual feftival, in hono ir of the faint to whom the church was dedicated, or on fome other occafion; and fuch wakes are yet known in the north of England. The humour and jollity of the meeting end in tumult and uproar, but difplay a very different character to the gloomy fanaticism of the two fucceeding centuries. From this angular poem, among other articles of manners, we learn that the women wore kerchiefs and hoods, and tippets; the mufic arofe from the bagpipe; the men fometimes wore hats of birchtwigs interwoven, the hat being any high covering of 'the head, while the bonnet was flat. A tavern, with fair table linen, and a regular score on the wall, are introduced: the reckoning twopence halfpenny a piece, is collected in a wooden trencher. The cadger, or packman who carries fish, &c. through the country, on his little horse; the falmon dance, confifting in exertions of high leaping; and other anecdotes of popular manners, diverfify the piece.

"The drefs of the common people confifted chiefly of a doublet and cloke, and a kind of fhort trowfe; the head was covered with a hat of basket-work, or felt, or with a woolen bonnet; while the legs and feet remained bare. Shirts were hardly known even to the

great.