stranger will discover that they possess a curiosity, and have obtained a degree of information, corresponding to these acquirements.

These advantages they owe to the legal provision made by the parliament of Scotland in 1646, for the establishment of a school in every parish throughout the kingdom, for the express purpose of educating the poor: a law which may challenge comparison with any act of legislation to be found in the records of history, whether we consider the wisdom of the ends in view, the simplicity of the means employed, or the provisions made to render these means effectual to their purpose. This excellent statute was repealed on the accession of Charles II. in 1660, together with all the other laws passed during the commonwealth, as not being sanctioned by the royal assent. It slept during the reigns of Charles and James, but was re-enacted, precisely in the same terms, by the Scottish parliament after the revolution, in 1696; and this is the last provision on the subject. Its effects on the national character may be considered to have commenced about | the period of the Union; and doubtless it co-operated with the peace and security arising from that happy event, in producing the extraordinary change in favour of industry and good morals, which the character of the common people of Scotland has since undergone.*

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 appearance; 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. A hu-、 man 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 large portion of The church-establishment of Scotland the globe on which we tread, and discohappily coincides with the institution just vering advantage at a greater distance mentioned, which may be called its school on its surface. His desires or ambition, establishment. The clergyman being ev- once excited, are stimulated by his imaery where resident in his particular par- gination; and distant and uncertain obish, becomes the natural patron and super-jects, giving freer scope to the operation intendent of the parish school, 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 re-emigration from the former to the latter spectable 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

• Seo Appendix. No. I. Note A.

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,

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 | the first and most constant exercise of fertile plains of England; and more espe- ingenuity among the peasantry of Scotcially, over the colonies which she had land is displayed in religious disputation. settled in the east and west. The stream With a strong attachment to the naof population continues to flow from the tional creed, is conjoined a bigoted prenorth to the south; for the causes that ference of certain forms of worship; the originally impelled it continue to operate; source of which could be often altogether and the richer country is constantly in- obscure, if we did not recollect that the vigorated by the accession of an informed ceremonies of the Scottish Church were and hardy race of men, educated in po-framed in direct opposition, in every verty, and prepared for hardship and dan-point, to those of the church of Rome. ger; patient of labour, and prodigal of life.*

The eccentricities of conduct, and singularities of opinion and manners, which characterized the English sectaries in the last century, afforded a subject for the comic 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 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 bigoted: and the The information and the religious edunation received that deep tinge of fanati- cation of the peasantry of Scotland, procism which coloured their public transac-mote sedateness of conduct, and habits tions, as well as their private virtues, of thought and reflection.-These good and of which evident traces may be found qualities are not counteracted, by the esin our own times. When the public tablishment of poor laws, which while schools were established, the instruction they reflect credit on the benevolence, communicated in them partook of the redetract from the wisdom of the English ligious character of the people. The legislature. To make a legal provision Catechism of the Westminster Divines for the inevitable distresses of the poor, was the universal school-book, and was who by age or disease are rendered incaput into the hands of the yonng peasant pable of labour, may indeed seem an inas soon as he had acquired a knowledge dispensable duty of society; and if, in of his alphabet; and his first exercise in the execution of a plan for this purpose, the art of reading introduced him to the a distinction could be introduced, so as most mysterious doctrines of the Chris- to exclude from its benefits those whose tian faith. This practice is continued in sufferings are produced by idleness or our own times. After the Assembly's profligacy, such an institution would perCatechism, the Proverbs of Solomon, and haps be as rational as humane. But to he New and Old Testament, follow in lay a general tax on property for the supegular succession; and the scholar de- port of poverty, from whatever cause proparts, gifted with the knowledge of the ceeding, is a measure full of danger. It sacred writings, and receiving their doc- must operate in a considerable degree as trines according to the interpretation of an incitement to idleness, and a discourthe Westminster Confession of Faith. agement to industry. It takes away from Thus, with the instruction of infancy in vice and indolence the prospect of their the schools of Scotland are blended the dogmas of the national church; and hence

* See Appendix, No I, Note B.
(

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

most dreaded consequences, and from That dancing should also be very genevirtue and industry their peculiar sanc- rally a part of the education of the Scottions. In many cases it must render the tish peasantry, will surprise those who rise in the price of labour, not a blessing, have only seen this description of men : but a curse to the labourer; who, if there and still more those who reflect on the be an excess in what he earns beyond his rigid spirit of Calvinism with which the immediate necessities, may be expected nation is so deeply affected, and to which to devote this excess to his present grati- this recreation is so strongly abhorrent. fication; trusting to the provision inade The winter is also the season when they by law for his own and his family's sup- acquire dancing, and indeed almost all port, should disease suspend, or death their other instruction. They are taught terminate his labours. Happily, in Scot- to dance by persons generally of their land, the same legislature which estab- own number, many of whom work at dailished a system of instruction for the ly labour during the summer months. poor, resisted the introduction of a legal The school is usually a barn, and the provision for the support of poverty; the arena for the performers is generally a establishment of the first, and the rejec- clay floor. The dome is lighted by cantion of the last, were equally favourable dles stuck in one end of a cloven stick, to industry and good morals; and hence the other end of which is thrust into the it will not appear surprising, if the Scot- wall. Reels, strathspeys, country-dantish peasantry have a more than usual ces, and horn-pipes, are here practised. share of prudence and reflection, if they The jig so much in favour among the approach nearer than persons of their English peasantry, has no place among order usually do, to the definition of a them. The attachment of the people man, that of "a being that looks before of Scotland of every rank, and particuand after." These observations must in-larly of the peasantry, to this amusement, deed be taken with many exceptions: is very great. After the labours of the 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.

day are over, young men and women walk many miles, in the cold and dreary nights of winter, to these country dancing-schools; and the instant that the violin sounds a Scottish air, fatigue seems to vanish, the toil-bent rustic becomes erect, his features brighten with sympa. thy; 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 acenrate 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 | ing. To them we must attribute, in a over the spirit of the established religion, great measure, the romantic passion has not, however, been obtained without which so often characterizes the attachlong continued and obstinate struggles. ments of the humblest of the people of The numerous sectaries who dissent from Scotland, to a degree, that if we mistake the establishment on account of the re- not, is seldom found in the same rank of laxation which they perceive, or think society in other countries. The pictures they perceive, in the church, from her of love and happiness exhibited in their original doctrines and discipline, univer- rural songs, are early impressed on the sally condemn the practice of dancing, mind of the peasant, and are rendered and the schools where it is taught; and more attractive from the music with the more elderly and serious part of the which they are united. They associate people, of every persuasion, tolerate themselves with his own youthful emorather than approve these meetings of tions; they elevate the object as well as the young of both sexes, where dancing the nature of his attachment; and give is practised to their spirit-stirring music, to the impressions of sense the beautiful where care is dispelled, toil is forgotten, colours of imagination. Hence in the and prudence itself is sometimes lulled to course of his passion, a Scottish peasant sleep. often exerts a spirit of adventure, of which a Spanish cavalier need not be ashamed. After the labours of the day are over, he sets out for the habitation of his mistress, perhaps at many miles distance, regardless of the length or the dreariness of the way. He approaches her in secresy, under the disguise of night. A signal at the door or window, perhaps agreed on, and understood by none but her, gives information of his arrival; and sometimes it is repeated again and again, before the capricious fair one will obey the summons. But if she favours his adThe impression which the Scottish dresses, she escapes unobserved, and remusic has made on the people, is deepen-ceives the vows of her lover under the ed by its union with the national songs, of which various collections of unequal merit are before the public. These songs, like those of other nations, are many of them humorous; but they chiefly treat of love, war, and drinking. Love is the subject of the greater proportion. Without displaying the higher powers of the imagination, 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.

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 previously 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.

The origin of this amatory character in the rustic muse of Scotland, or of the greater number of these love-songs themselves, it would be difficult to trace; they have accumulated in the silent lapse of time, and it is now perhaps impossible to give an arrangement of them in the order of their date, valuable as such a record of taste and manners would be. Their present influence on the character of the nation is, however, great and strik

gloom of twilight, or the deeper shade of night. Interviews of this kind are the subjects of many of the Scottish songs, some of the most beautiful of which Burns has imitated or improved. In the art which they celebrate he was perfectly skilled; he knew and had practised all its mysteries. Intercourse of this sort is indeed universal even in the humblest condition of man in every region of the earth. But it is not unnatural to suppose that it may exist in a greater degree, and in a more romantic form, among the peasantry of a country who are supposed to be more than commonly instructed; who find in their rural songs expressions for their youthful emotions: and in whom the embers of passion are continually fanned by the breathings of a music full of tenderness and sensibility. The direct influence of physical causes on the attachment between the sexes is comparatively small, but it is modified by moral causes beyondany other affection of the mind. Of these, music and poetry are the chief. Among the snows of Lapland, and under the burning sun of Angola, the savage is seen

hastening to his mistress, and every where | of manners, the disciples of Calvin ashe beguiles the weariness of his journey with poetry and song.*

sumed a greater severity than those of the Protestant episcopal church. The punishment of illicit connexion between the sexes, was throughout all Europe, a province which the clergy assumed to themselves; and the church of Scotland, which at the Reformation renounced so many powers and privileges, at that period took this crime under her more estakes place without marriage, the condition of the female causes the discovery, and it is on her, therefore, in the first instance, that the clergy and elders of the church exercise their zeal. After examination oefore the kirk-session, touching the circumstances of her guilt, she must endure a public penance, and sustain a public rebuke from the pulpit, for three Sabbaths successively, in the face of the congregation to which she belongs, and thus have her weakness exposed, and her shame blazoned. The sentence is the same with respect to the male; but how much lighter the punishment! It is well known that this dreadful law, worthy of the iron minds of Calvin and of Knox, has often led to consequences, at the very mention of which human nature recoils

In appreciating the happiness and virtue of a community, there is perhaps no single criterion on which so much dependence may be placed, as the state of the intercourse between the sexes. Where this displays ardour of attachment, accompanied by purity of conduct, the cha-pecial jurisdiction.* Where pregnancy racter and the influence of women rise in society, our imperfect nature mounts in the scale of moral excellence; and, from the source of this single affection, a stream of felicity descends, which branches into a thousand rivulets that enrich and adorn the field of life Where the attachment between the sexes sinks into an appetite, the heritage of our spe cies is comparatively poor, and man approaches the condition of the brutes that perish. "If we could with safety indu.ge the pleasing supposition that Fingal lived and that Ossian sung," Scotland. judging from this criterion, might be considered as ranking high in happiness and virtue in very remote ages. To appreciate her situation by the same criterion in our own times, would be a delicate and a difficult undertaking. After considering the probable influence of her popular songs and her national music, and examining how far the effects to be expected from these are supported by facts, the inquirer would also have to examine the influence of other causes, and particularly of her civil and ecclesiastical institutio is, by which the character, and even the manners of a people, though silently and slowly, are often powerfully controlled. In the point of view in which we are considering the subject, the ecclesiastical establishments of Scotland may be supposed peculiarly favourable to purity of conduct. The dissoluteness of manners among the catholic clergy, which preceded, and in some measure produced the Reformation, led to an extraordinary strictness on the part of the reformers, and especially in that particular in which the licentiousness of the clergy had been carried to its greatest height-the intercourse between the sexes. On this point, as on all others connected with austerity

*The North American Indians, among whom the

attachment between the sexes is said to be weak, and love, in the purer sense of the word, unknown, seem nearly unacquainted with the charms of poetry and music. See Wild's Four.

t Gibbon.

While the punishment of incontinence prescribed by the institutions of Scotland Is severe, the culprits have an obvious method of avoiding it afforded them by the law respecting marriage, the validity of which requires neither the ceremonies of the church, nor any other ceremonies, but simply the deliberate acknowledgment of each other as husband and wife, made by the parties before witnesses, or in any other way that gives legal evidence of such an acknowledgment having taken place. And as the parties themselves fix the date of their marriage, an opportunity is thus given to avoid the punishment, and repair the consequences of illicit gratification. Such a degree of laxity respecting so serious a contract might produce much confusion in the descent of property, without a still farther indulgence; but the law of Scotland legitimating all children born before wedlock, on the subsequent marriage of their parents, renders the actual date of the marriage itself of little consequence. Marriages contracted in Scotland without the ceremonies of the church, are considered

* See Appendix, No. I. Note C.

+ See Appendix, No. I. Note D