which had been formed, for the purpose of plunder and robbery: That although the prisoner at the bar was upon the streets on that unfortunate night, as every other person of his rank and situation in life was, yet he had not been proved to have been present at any one of the numerous robberies which had been committed; for all the witnesses who had seen him in the early part of the night universally swore that they always missed him upon these occasions: That although the articles mentioned in the indictment had been found upon him, yet he had accounted for his possession of them in a posible, nay, even in a probable way; and that so long as that possibility or probability of innocence did exist, he contended, it was their duty to lean to the side of mercy, more especially when the party accused had established such a character, for honesty in particular, as the prisoner had been proved to have maintained, down to the very hour of the alleged offence. He concluded a most impressive speech, by intreating the Jury to keep in mind, that it were better ten guilty persons should escape, than that one innocent person should suffer; and he hoped, therefore, they would find the charges not proven against the pannel. The Lord Justice Clerk summed up the evidence, in a speech of considerable length. The Jury were inclosed a little after five o'clock, and appointed to give in their verdict on Tuesday at one o'clock. The Court again met on Tuesday, when the Jury returned a verdict, all in one voice finding the pannel Guilty, but unanimously and earnestly recommending him to mercy, on account of his former good character. The Judges delivered their opinions at considera ble length, lamenting the unfor tunate situation of the pannel, and assuring the Jury, that their hu mane recommendation should be transmitted to the Prince Regent; but saying that no alternative was left to them but to pronounce the awful sentence of the law-when, after a suitable admonition from the Lord Justice Clerk, he was sentenced to be executed at Edinburgh, on Wednesday the 15th day of April next. Counsel for the Crown---the Solicitor General, and William Horne, Esq; Agent, Mr Hugh Warrender, W. S. Counsel for the pannel---James Gordon, S. McCormick, and Alex. Wood, Esqrs.; Agents, Messrs. Hopkirk and Riddell, w. s. This trial excited great interest, and the Court was uncommonly crowded both on Monday aud Tuesday. The Observer. No. XXIV. In vitium ducit culpæ fuga, si caret arte, HORACE. T HERE is so striking a dissimi larity in almost every particular between the aspects of rude and of civilized life, that it would be an amusing speculation to consider the sentiments with which it may be supposed, that a person accustomed from infancy to the former, would pass into the latter; to imagine his emotions on being introduced to so many objects and appearances altogether new to him, to follow the progress of his mind from its first feelings of astonishment or contempt, through all the successive stages of growing conviction, of the reasonableness of what at first he was disposed to regard with so little indulgence, and to mark the issue of the whole matter in his own participation in conformity to a condition and character character entirely at variance with all his early prejudices and habits; while in every age and in all states of society, it seems to have a prevalent impression of the human mind, that the things of that particular period in which it was its own fate to exist, were greatly inferior to those of more ancient times, the same acknowledgement of comparative degeneracy has been very far from being admitted when the question was between a man's own country and any other nation. There the claim of superiority has been commonly maintained with no less pertinacity, than in the other case it has been freely relinquish ed; and the same person who is forward to complain of the times in which he lives, and to lament the fatal decay and loss of the honours of our common nature, would be fired with indignation, were any one to insinuate that on the face of the earth, as it now is, there is any where exhibited a national character more estimable than that of the community to which he has the happiness to belong; that there is any other region under heaven, more distinguished for the manly vigour of its sons, or for the beauty and the virtues of its daughters. This mode of judging is not confined to such as are in reality favourably distinguished above others in any of those respects, as to which they put forward their pretensions to precedency. Indeed with that preposterousness of which there are many other examples, the case seems to be in a great, measure perfectly the reverse; and as the inhabitants of some of the most rugged and desolate parts of the earth, are said to feel often an attachment to their native soil, of which there are few examples in regions of the highest fertility and beauty, so to those whose condition and manners have not emerg ed from the rudest state of barbarism, that barbarism and that rudeness are extremely apt to appear under the character of whatever is most estimable and most perfect in human nature. It is to this predilection founded indeed on habit, not to the mere habit considered independently of any such consequence, that we are to attribute that tenacious adherence to their own modes and customs, which has sometimes been exhibited in the person even of individuals, placed in circumstances most favourable to the acquisition of new improvement and enjoyment. We are astonished at this conduct; we wonder how it is possible that any one should prefer a state of society, in which he could hardly obtain the necessaries of life, to another which places within his reach even superfluity and luxury; how he should choose to wallow in filth, beset with indigence, nakedness and hunger, when he had it in his power to exchange these appendages of wretchedness for convenient clothing, wholesome nourishment, and comfortable accommodation; how he should incline to forego the elegant amusements of polished life, for the rustic gambols of untutored savages; or for the sake of sullenness, insipidity, or boisterous noise, to withdraw himself from the decencies, the refine ments, and the spirited or the com plaisant conversations of civilized society. This surprise is in some degree perhaps reasonable. I many respects, undoubtedly, there is a real advantage on the part of civilized, over uncultivated and barbarous life, and from a plurality of things placed within its power, it may be considered that even unimproved nature should not be totally incapable of distinguishing justly, and of selecting for itself the best. On this growed, however, the the utmost that can in any event, is peculiar in their personal circum be charged, is a misapprehension only of such a kind as is not on many occasions easily to be avoid ed, even by those who to equal natural parts have superadded the benefits of acquired education. They too are liable at times to make mistaken choices. They, no less than the unlettered and the uncultivated, are apt to be influenced by prejudice in favour of that mode of life to which they have chiefly been accustomed. And it may be fairly asserted, that it is always in part owing to this cause, that such examples as have been just alluded to, appear so very strange and unaccountable as they often do; that it is sometimes altogether a consequence of it. For civilized life in any form of it, with which we have yet become acquainted, is not, any more than barbarous life, absolutely free from imperfection. In some respects, the latter may justly claim a preference over the other. If therefore no regard is had to this consideration, but every thing which is found in the one of these modes of life is esteemed and praised, every thing reprobated and contemned, that enters into the other, it must follow, that affection will be sometimes misplaced, the objects towards which it is directed, being seen not as they are in themselves, but as they appear through the medium of this false impression. When the real distinctions of things are thus overlooked, and through the effect of the overweening con-. fidence which every man is so apt to place in his own judgment, and in the soundness of his particular measures and views, the danger is considerable, that improper estimates may be formed by persons both in respect to their own character and those of others. They are apt to err alike by overrating what stances, and by undervaluing what they have not in common with men, who may occupy a place upon the whole indeed inferior to theirs, but may yet be in possession of advantages which blindness only could not see, and stubbornness alone would be unwilling to acknowledge. For the most part those who are called barbarous are favourably distinguished above such as have been modelled after the fashion of artificial life, by the possession of greater bodily strength, more determined resolution of mind, a superiority of vigour in action, of patience and fortitude in suffering. If in comparison of these, which he is disposed to consider as his most estimable qualities, the inhabitant of the woods is apt to hold in contempt the accomplishments, the elegancies and all the varied acquirements which in polished society, it is the business of so many years, and by the means of so much industry and application, to attain, this is no more than it were reasonable to expect from the whole tenor of his instruction; from the first bias given to his mind, and from the tendency of numerous associations which by circumstances of the most interesting kind, claim an irresistible influence over his heart and affections. He may be faulty in making less account than they are justly entitled to, of those other qualifications with which hẹ contrasts them. But for this too his apology is easy and obvious. The same thing cannot be said in favour of any who may to an equal extent, support the opposite sentiment, or who in following out that conviction, may think or profess to think, very hardly of the judgment dictated to him by nature. For is he not in this instance radically in the right. And if the votary of polish and of fashion has allowed allowed himself so far to be drawn away by a regard to these subordinate features, as to confound them with, or even to rate them above what ought to be, the main lines of the picture, he has reason to be ashamed of the depraved state of his own mind, not to be indignant or astonished at the really sounder and more rational views of untutored, and as it may appear to him, despicable ignorance. Sincerity, candour, openness, in like manner, and, as a natural counterpart to these, unsuspecting confidence, are traits commonly to be expected in the savage character. In circumstances in which there is little inducement to practise deceit, there must be supposed a great er proportion than is usually found, even in the human mind, of a tendency to mysteriousness and cunning, before the duplicity, the solicitude and distrust which in such a degree infest civilized society, could penetrate into the desert, and to the privations to which all are subject in those regions of desolation, add the fear of each other. The uncultivated barbarian speaks out without hesitation whatever occurs to him. He is not restrained in the statement of what he considers to be truth, either by the scruples of a frigid prudence, or by any fastidiousness of delicacy. He conceives that others are in this respect, quite on the same footing with himself. What is said to him therefore, is what be considers it proper that he should believe, without troubling himself about any secret meanings, or endeavouring to penetrate through any covering or disgue, supposed to hide from him the thing which it concerns him to know. It is not to be denied that a state of society, as completely distinguished from that to which he has been accustomed, in this perhaps as in any one respect, the March 1812. unlimited adoption of a similar principle might be attended with many disadvantages. But it may be questioned if even the exigencies of polished life, are such as to call for, or to justify that total dereliction of these virtues of the savage, which may sometimes have been observed. In the proportion in which that necessity exists, it is undoubted, that what is called an improvement, is in fact deterioration and degeneracy. The only distinction between individuals acknowledged among men, in an uncivilized state, are such as are founded in the diversity of their personal merit. To those who have no idea of any thing else, which should disturb the natural equality subsisting among the several members of the great family of mankind, it will no doubt appear very strange, that in any instance this should be the least considerable circumstance towards the regulation of that matter. It will seem unaccountable, that by the very condition of their birth, one portion of beings of the same race should be destined to wealth, to luxury, to influence, to authority; and another, in no respect inferior to them, should by the like blind determination, be marked out. for toil, insignificance and wretchedness. The pomp, the state, the difficulty of access affected often in cases in which the elevation thus assigned by fortune, is not set off by any qualities of a more truly meritorious and estimable kind, must appear not less surprising or less unreasonable than the other parts of this arrangement. The whole scheme can hardly fail to be considered as ludicrous and fantastical, and the simplicity of nature to be remembered with regret amidst all the splendours of artificial combination. The impression even upon minds which early habit may be supposed to have moulded to а a different mode of thinking, if influenced in any degree by the light of true philosophy, must be that such institutions are to be justified rather from necessity than by any consideration of absolute fitness, and that they must be hateful and intolerable, unless mitigated in practice by an occasional recurrence. more open or more covert to those original principles, which though not very perceptibly acted upon in particular instances, can yet seldom be with safety thrown altogether out of view, in any of the regulations laid down for the conduct of society. It is curious to consider how few are the wants, how little the anxiety to provide against them in barbarous compared with civilized regions. If the savage obtains the meal, of the necessity of which he is admonished at any time by hunger, immediately he is freed from all farther desire or care. He does not reflect that he shall ever have occasion for a supply of the same kind again, and therefore does not put himself to the least trouble in the view of meeting such an exigency. The means of his shelter over night, he is ready to part with in, the morning for whatever trifle may engage his fancy, as if he considered that no night were for the future to return. He seldom in any case looks beyond the passing moment, and is therefore little solicitous either about necessities which he does not feel, or about provisions, of which he does not carry his reflections far enough forward, to anticipate the importance. He suffers the natural consequence of this negligence in the frequent returns of pinching famine, and of the rigours of houseless desolation. He makes a shift to get out of the existing difficulty, of which he thinks no farther, but continues to pass his time in the same listless indolence of which he might have been so well taught by painful experience, to appreciate the disastrous results. Such is far from being the fault usually of civilized life. There, on the other hand, the zeal for providing goes often far beyond any real occasion which even on the largest supposition can be counted on as likely to arise. The earth itself is parcelled out among individuals, and by every art that human ingenuity can devise, it is endeavoured to make a property in its produce, even coeval with its existence. So far from the thirst of possession moderating, as there is an evident advance towards that period, when no farther use can be made of any thing terrestrial, avarice grows with the increase of age, and the accumulated treasures of the world would hardly satisfy the desires of a being, whose infirmities are such as to preclude him almost entirely from the enjoyment, even of the least part of all that he has acquired. However little the prospect that any real benefit may be derived from it, the scramble goes on without intermission for every thing that is considered to be wealth, or the representative of wealth. The eagerness for gain is not to be satisfied, and property, instead of a mean towards other ends, which alone it obviously is, comes itself to be regarded as the legitimate and ultimate end of all exertion. Thus it seems as if the human mind must be for ever in extremes, when from a total indifference even about a necessary subsistence, its next step is to such an inordinate and unmeasured desire of possession, as is totally disproportioned to any ac tual want, and not less than the former indifference, subversive of immediate comfort and happiness. In the several particulars which have been enumerated, and more might have been added, there is so thorough |