resident in his particular parish, becomes the natural patron and superintendant of the parishschool, and is enabled in various ways to promote the comfort of the teacher, and the proficiency of the scholars. The teacher himself is often a candidate for holy orders, who, during the long course of study and probation required in the Scottish church, renders the time which can be spared from his professional studies, useful to others as well as to himself, by assuming the respectable character of a schoolmaster. It is common for the established schools, even in the country parishes of Scotland, to enjoy the means of classical instruction; and many of the farmers, and some even of the cottagers, submit to much privation, that they may obtain, for one of their sons at least, the precarious advantage of a learned education. The difficulty to be surmounted arises indeed not from the expense of instructing their children, but from the charge of supporting them. In the country parish-schools, the English language, writing, and accounts are generally taught at the rate

preceding the year 1797, the executions in that division of the island did not amount to six annually; and one quarter-sessions for the town of Manchester only, has sent, according to Mr Hume, more felons to the plantations, than all the judges of Scotland usually do in the space of a year.* It might appear invidious to attempt a calculation of the many thousand individuals in Manchester and its vicinity who can neither read nor write. A majority of those who suffer the punishment of death for their crimes in every part of England are, it

is believed, in this miserable state of ignorance.

of six shillings, and Latin at the rate of ten or twelve shillings, per annum. In the town, the prices are somewhat higher.

A

It would be improper in this place to inquire minutely into the degree of instruction received at these seminaries, or to attempt any precise estimate of its effects, either on the individuals who are the subjects of this instruction, or on the community to which they belong. That it is on the whole favourable to industry and morals, though doubtless with some individual exceptions, seems to be proved by the most striking and decisive experience; and it is equally clear, that it is the cause of that spirit of emigration and of adventure so prevalent among the Scotch. Knowledge has, by Lord Verulam, been denominated power; by others it has, with less propriety, been denominated virtue or happiness: we may with confidence consider it as motion. human being, in proportion as he is informed, has his wishes enlarged, as well as the means of gratifying those wishes. He may be considered as taking within the sphere of his vision a larger portion of the globe on which we tread, and spying advantage at a greater distance on its surface. His desires or ambition, once excited, are stimulated by his imagi nation; and distant and uncertain objects, giving freer scope to the operation of this faculty, often acquire, in the mind of the youthful adventurer, an attraction from their very distance and uncertainty. If, therefore, a greater degree of instruction be given to the peasantry of a country comparatively poor, in the neighbourhood of other countries rich in natural and acquired advantages; and if the barriers be removed that kept them separate, emigration from the former to the latter will take place to a certain extent, by laws nearly as uniform as those by which heat diffuses itself among surrounding bodies, or water finds its level when left to its natural course. By the articles of the Union, the barrier was broken down which divided the two British nations, and knowledge and poverty poured the adventurous natives of the north over the ferThe similarity of character between the Swiss and the tile plains of England, and more especially, Scotch, and between the Scotch and the people of New England, can scarcely be overlooked. That it arises in over the colonies which she had settled in the a great measure from the similarity of their institutions East and in the West. The stream of popu for instruction, cannot be questioned. It is no doubt lation continues to flow from the north to the increased by physical causes. With a superior degree of instruction, each of these nations possesses a country south; for the causes that originally impelled that may be said to be sterile, in the neighbourhood of it, continue to operate; and the richer country countries comparatively rich. Hence emigrations and the other effects on conduct and character which such is constantly invigorated by the accession of an eircumstances naturally produce. This subject is in a informed and hardy race of men, educated in high degree curious. The points of dissimilarity between these nations might be traced to their causes also, poverty, and prepared for hardship and danger, and the whole investigation would perhaps admit of an patient of labour, and prodigal of life." approach to certainty in our conclusions, to which such inquiries seldom lead. How much superior in morals, in intellect, and in happiness, the peasantry of those parts of England are who have opportunities of instruction, to the same class in other situations, those who inquire into the subject will speedily discover. The peasantry of Westmoreland, and of the other districts mentioned above, if their physical and moral qualities be taken together, are, in the opinion of the Editor, superior to the peasantry of any part of the island.

There is now a legal provision for parochial schools, or rather for a school in each of the different townships into which the country is divided, in several of the northern states of North America. They are, however, of recent origin there, excepting in New England, where they were established in the last century, probably about the same time as in Scotland, and by the same religious sect. In the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland, the peasantry have the advantage of similar 'schools, though established and endowed in a different manner. This is also the case in certain districts in England, particularly in the northern parts of Yorkshire and of Lancashire, and in the counties of West

moreland and Cumberland.

A law, providing for the instruction of the poor, was passed by the parliament of Ireland; but the fund was diverted from its purpose, and the measure was entirely

frustrated. Proh Pudor!

* Hume's Commentaries, on the Laws of Scotland, Introduction,

50.

*It has been supposed that Scotland is less populous and less improved on account of this emigration; but such conclusions are doubtful, if not wholly fallacious. The principle of population acts in no country to the full extent of its power: marriage is every where redifficulty of supporting a family; and this obstacle is tarded beyond the period pointed out by nature, by the greatest in long-settled communities. The emigration by producing a relative increase in the means of sub. of a part of a people facilitates the marriage of the rest,

The preachers of the Reformation in Scotland were disciples of Calvin, and brought with them the temper as well as the tenets of that celebrated heresiarch. The presbyterian form of worship and of church government was endeared to the people, from its being established by themselves. It was endeared to them, also, by the struggle it had to maintain with the Catholic and the Protestant episcopal churches, over both of which, after a hundred years of fierce, and sometimes bloody contention, it finally triumphed, receiving the countenance of government, and the sanction of law. During this long period of contention and of suffering, the temper of the people became more and more obstinate and bigotted; and the nation received that deep tinge of fanaticism, which coloured their public transactions as well as their private virtues, and of which evident traces may be found in our own times. When the public schools were established, the instruction communicated in them partook of the religious character of the people. The Catechism of the Westminster Divines was the universal school-book, and was put into the hands of the young peasant as soon as he had acquired a knowledge of his alphabet; and his first exercises in the art of reading introduced him to the most mysterious doctrines of the Christian faith. This practice is continued in our own times. After the Assembly's Catechism, the Proverbs of Solomon, and the New and Old Testament, follow in regular succession; and the scholar departs, gifted with the knowledge of the sacred writings, and receiving their doctrines according to the interpretation of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Thus with the instruction of infancy in the schools of Scotland, are blended the dogmas of the national church; and hence the first and most constant exercise of ingenuity among the peasantry of Scotland, is displayed

in religious disputation. With a strong at tachment to the national creed, is conjoined a bigotted preference of certain forms of worship; the source of which would be often altogether obscure, if we did not recollect that the ceremonies of the Scottish Church were framed in direct opposition, in every point, to those of the Church of Rome.

The eccentricities of conduct, and singularities of opinion and manners, which characterized the English sectaries in the last century, afforded a subject for the muse of Butler, whose pictures lose their interest, since their archetypes are lost. Some of the peculiarities common among the more rigid disciples of Calvinism in Scotland, in the present times, have given scope to the ridicule of Burns, whose humour is equal to Butler's, and whose drawings from living manners are singularly expressive and exact. Unfortunately the correctness of his taste did not always correspond with the strength of his genius; and hence some of the most exquisite of his comic productions are rendered unfit for the light. *

The information and the religious education of the peasantry of Scotland, promote sedateness of conduct, and habits of thought and reflection. - These good qualities are not counteracted by the establishment of poor laws, which, while they reflect credit on the benevolence, detract from the wisdom of the English legislature. To make a legal provision for the inevitable distress of the poor, who by age or disease are rendered incapable of labour, may indeed seem an indispensable duty of society; and if, in the execution of a plan for this purpose, a distinction could be introduced, so as to exclude from its benefits those whose sufferings are produced by idleness or profligacy, such an institution would perhaps be as rational as humane. But to lay a general tax on property for the support of poverty, from whatever cause proceeding, is a measure full of danger. It must operate in a considersistence. The arguments of Adam Smith, for a free able degree as a bounty on idleness, and a duty export of corn, are perhaps applicable with less exception to the free export of people. The more certain the on industry. It takes away from vice and vent, the greater the cultivation of the soil. This sub-indolence the prospect of their most dreaded ject has been well investigated by Sir James Stewart, whose principles have been expanded and farther illus trated in a late truly philosophical Essay on Population. In fact, Scotland has increased in the number of its inhabitants in the last forty years, as the Statistics of Sir John Sinclair clearly prove, but not in the ratio that some had supposed. The extent of the emigration of the Scots may be calculated with some degree of confidence from the proportionate number of the two sexes in Scotland; a point that may be established pretty exactly by an examination of the invaluable Statistics already mentioned. If we suppose that there is an equal number of male and female natives of Scotland, alive somewhere or other, the excess by which the females exceed the males in their own country, may be considered to be equal to the number of Scotchmen living out of Scotland. But though the males born in Scotland be admitted to be as 13 to 12, and though some of the females emigrate as well as the males, this mode of calculating would probably make the number of expatriated Scotchmen, at any one time alive, greater than the truth. The unhealthy climates into which they emigrate, the hazardous services in which so many of them engage, render the mean life of those who leave Scotland (to speak in the language of calculators) not perhaps of half the value of the mean life of those who remain.

consequences, and from virtue and industry their peculiar sanctions. In many cases it must render the rise in the price of labour, not a blessing, but a curse to the labourer; who, if there be an excess in what he earns beyond bis immediate necessities, may be expected to devote this excess to his present gratification; trusting to the provision made by law for his own and his family's support, should disease suspend, or death terminate his labours. Happily in Scotland, the same legislature which established a system of instruction for the poor, resisted the introduction of a legal provision for the support of poverty; what they granted on the one hand, and what they re

Holy Willie's Prayer, Rob the Rymer's Welcome to his Bastard Child, Epistle to J. Gowdie, the Holy Tulzie, &c.

fused on the other, was equally favourable to industry and good morals; and hence it will not appear surprising, if the Scottish peasantry have a more than usual share of prudence and reflection, if they approach nearer than persons of their order usually do, to the definition of a man, that of "a being that looks before and after." These observations must indeed be taken with many exceptions: the favourable operation of the causes just mentioned is counteracted by others of an opposite tendency; and the subject, if fully examined, would lead to discussions of great extent.

When the reformation was established in Scotland, instrumental music was banished from the churches, as savouring too much of "profane minstrelsy." Instead of being regulated by an instrument, the voices of the congregation are led and directed by a person under the name of a precentor; and the people are all expected to join in the tune which he chooses for the psalm which is to be sung. Church-music is therefore a part of the education of the peasantry of Scotland, in which they are usually instructed in the long winter nights by the parish schoolmaster, who is generally the precentor, or by itinerant teachers more celebrated for their powers of voice. This branch of education had, in the last reign, fallen into some neglect, but was revived about thirty or forty years ago, when the music itself was reformed and improved. The Scottish system of psalmody is however radically bad. Destitute of taste or harmony, it forms a striking contrast with the delicacy and pathos of the profane airs. Our poet, it will be found, was taught church-music, in which, however, he made little proficiency.

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fatigue seems to vanish, the toil-bent rustic becomes erect, his features brighten with sympathy; every nerve seems to thrill with sensation, and every artery to vibrate with life. These rustic performers are indeed less to be admired for grace, than for agility and animation, and their accurate observance of time. Their modes of dancing, as well as their tunes, are common to every rank in Scotland, and are now generally known. In our own day they have penetrated into England, and have established themselves even in the circle of Royalty. In another generation they will be naturalized in every part of the island.

The prevalence of this taste, or rather passion for dancing, among a people so deeply tinctured with the spirit and doctrines of Calvin, is one of those contradictions which the philosophic observer so often finds in national character and manners. It is probably to be ascribed to the Scottish music, which, throughout all its varieties, is so full of sensibility, and which, in its livelier strains, awakes those vivid emotions that find in dancing their natural solace and relief.

This triumph of the music of Scotland over the spirit of the established religion, has not, however, been obtained without long continued and obstinate struggles. The numerous sectaries who dissent from the establishment on account of the relaxation which they perceive, or think they perceive, in the Church, from original doctrines and discipline, universally condemn the practice of dancing, and the schools where it is taught and the more elderly and serious part of the people, of every persuasion, tolerate rather than approve these meetings of the young of both sexes, where dancing is practised to their spirit-stirring music, where care is dispelled, toil is forgotten, and prudence itself is sometimes lulled to sleep.

The Reformation, which proved fatal to the rise of the other fine arts in Scotland, probably impeded, but could not obstruct, the progress of its music; a circumstance that will convince the impartial inquirer, that this music not only existed previous to that era, but had taken a firm hold of the nation; thus affording a proof of its antiquity, stronger than any produced by the researches of our antiquaries.

That dancing should also be very generally a part of the education of the Scottish peasantry, will surprise those who have only seen this description of men; and still more those who reflect on the rigid spirit of Calvinism with which the nation is so deeply affected, and to which this recreation is so strongly abhorrent. The winter is also the season when they acquire dancing, and indeed almost all their other instruction. They are taught to dance by persons generally of their own number, many of whom work at daily labour during the summer months. The school is usually a barn, and the arena for the performers is gen- The impression which the Scottish music erally a clay floor. The dome is lighted by has made on the people, is deepened by its candles stuck in one end of a cloven stick, the union with the national songs, of which other end of which is thrust into the wall. various collections of unequal merit are before Reels, strathspeys, country-dances, and horn- the public. These songs, like those of other pipes, are here practised. The jig, so much nations, are many of them humorous, but they in favour among the English peasantry, has chiefly treat of love, war, and drinking. Love no place among them. The attachment of the is the subject of the greater proportion. Withpeople of Scotland, of every rank, and parti-out displaying the higher powers of the ima cularly of the peasantry, to this amusement, is very great. After the labours of the day are over, young men and women walk many miles, in the cold and dreary night of winter, to these country dancing-schools; and the instant that the violin sounds a Scottish air,

gination, they exhibit a perfect knowledge of the human heart, and breathe a spirit of affection, and sometimes of delicate and romantic tenderness, not to be surpassed in modern poetry, and which the more polished strains of antiquity have seldom possessed.