ed church and the sects which have branched off from it, are apparently tending to the most deplorable results in the Highlands, where the gospel, as explained by their clergy, was formerly believed with the most implicit faith; but now, that the people see new preachers come among them, and hear the doctrines and lessons of the regular clergy derided, and described as unchristian and unsound, and that, as sometimes happens, the parish minister retorts on the intruders, people know not what or whom to believe, and there are many instances of the doubt thus thrown on religious doctrines, ending in loss of all respect for, or belief in, any religion whatever. *

Yet though many Highlanders are thus changed, and have lost thus much of their taste for the poetry and romantic amusements of their ancestors, and though the kindness, urbanity, and respect with which all strangers were treated, have considerably abated,-with all these, and several other differences from their former character, they still retain the inestimable virtues of integrity and charity; † their mora

• Of this, lamentable consequences of ignorant zeal, and unchristian disputations, I know many instances.

+ It is a principle among the Highlanders not to allow poor and distressed persons to apply in vain, or to pass their door without affording them some charitable assistance. This disposition is so well known, that the country bordering on the Lowlands is overwhelmed with shoals of beggars; an evil which has increased since the societies for the suppression of mendicity were established in the south. This is a heavy charge on the benevolence of the people, and calls for the prompt interference of the landlords. If they would establish checks in the great passes and entrances into the country to stop those sturdy beggars and strangers, who are so numerous, while the native beggars are so few, the people would easily support their own poor without any assistance whatever.

Travelling three years ago through a high and distant glen, I saw a poor man, with a wife and four children, resting themselves by the road side. Perceiving, by their appearance, that they were not of the country, I inquired whence they came. The man answered, from West Lothian. I expressed my surprise how he would leave so fine and fertile a country, and come to these wild glens. "In that fine country," answered the man, "they give me the cheek of the door, and hound the constables after me; in this poor country, as you, Sir, call it, they give me and my little ones the fire-side, with a share of what they have,"

lity is sufficiently proved by the records of the courts of justice;* their liberality to the poor, and the independent spirit of the poor themselves, are likewise sufficiently evinced by the trifling and almost nominal amount of the public funds for their relief; and their conduct in the field, and their general qualities of firmness, spirit, and courage, will appear in the subsequent annals.

SECTION II.

Causes and consequences of this change-State when placed on small lots of land-Poverty followed by demoralization.

HAVING thus hastily glanced at some of the changes which Highland manners have undergone during the last fifty years, it may be interesting to trace the causes by which these changes have been produced. When Highland proprietors, ceasing to confine themselves within the limits of the Grampians, began to mingle with the world, and acquire its tastes and manners, they became weary of a constant residence on their estates, and wished for a more enlarged and varied society than a scanty and monotonous neighbourhood afforded. † Those who could af

• See Appendix.

To those who live in the busy world, and are hurried round by its agitations, it is difficult to form an idea of the means by which time may be filled up, and interest excited in families, who, through choice or necessity, dwell among their own people. The secret lies in the excitement of strong attachment. To be in the centre of a social circle, where one is beloved and useful,-to be able to mould the characters and direct the passions by which one is surrounded, creates, in those whom the world has not hardened, a powerful interest in the most minute circumstance which gives pleasure or pain to any individual in that circle, where so much affection and good will are concentrated. The mind is stimulated by stronger excitements, and a greater variety of enjoyments, than matters of even the highest importance can produce in those who are render

ford the expence removed to London or Edinburgh for, at least, the winter months; and their sons, who formerly remained at home till sent to the universities to finish their education, now accompanied their parents at so early an age, that they lost the advantages of founding their classical attainments on the generous enthusiasm and the amor patriæ ascribed to mountaineers. But the Highland youth were now, in many cases, early alienated from their clans, and from those regions in which warm affections and cordial intimacies subsisted between the gentry and the people; and the new tastes which they acquired were little calculated to cherish those sympathies and affections which indescribably endear the home of our youth. Thus initiated into the routine of general society, when they occasionally returned to their native glens they felt the absence of the variety of town amusements, and had also lost that homefelt dignity and those social habits which formerly gave a nameless charm to the paternal seat of a Highland landlord, while he maintained an easy intercourse with the neighbouring proprietors, and with the old retainers of the family and gentlemen farmers, or, as they are styled in the expressive language of patriarchal feudal brotherhood, friendly tenants."* These were no longer companions

ed callous, by living among the selfish and the frivolous. It is not the importance of the objects, but the value at which they are estimated, that renders their moral interest permanent and salutary.

• The extinction of the respectable race of tacksmen, or gentlemenfarmers, where it has taken place on extensive estates, is a serious loss to the people. Dr Johnson, speaking of the removal of the tacksmen, as it was supposed they could not pay equally high rents with men who lived in an inferior style, and who required less expensive education for their children, thus expresses himself: "The commodiousness of money is indeed great, but there are some advantages which money cannot buy, and which, therefore, no wise man will, by the love of money, be tempted to forego." The soundness of this opinion has been fully confirmed; the rank and influence which these respectable men held are now void,— their places being, in most cases, filled up by shepherds and graziers from the south, or by such natives as had stock or credit to undertake their farms. This new class being generally without birth, education, or any of

suited to the newly acquired tastes and habits. The minds of landlords were directed to the means of increasing their incomes, and of acquiring the funds necessary to support their new and more expensive mode of life in a distant country, while their own was impoverished by this constant drain of its produce.

The system of agriculture which formerly prevailed in the Highlands was well adapted to the character and habits of the people, and was directed to the cultivation of grain, and the rearing of cattle and goats. The value of

the qualifications requisite to secure the respect of the people on those great estates, where there are no resident proprietors, the inhabitants are left without a man of talent, or of sufficient influence, from rank or education, to settle the most ordinary disputes, or capable of acting as a justice of the peace, and of signing those certificates and affidavits, which the law in so many instances requires. In extensive districts, containing two, three, and four thousand persons each, not more than one or two at the utmost, or perhaps none, of the ancient rank of gentlemen tacksmen remain. These few are the only individuals capable of acting as justices of the peace; and pensioners and others, who wish to make affidavits, must travel thirty or forty miles for that purpose. Fortunately for the people of the districts to which we allude, their original habits are still so strong and so well preserved, that magistrates have hitherto been seldom necessary for other purposes. The want of magistrates, therefore, is a trifling grievance in comparison of leaving a population so numerous and virtuous, open to an inundation of political and religious tracts, of ignorant and pretended teachers of the gospel, and of agents of the WHITE slave TRADE; the last of whom induce many unfortunate creatures to emigrate to America, and to sell the reversion of their persons aud labour for the passage, which they cannot otherwise obtain. Of the religious and political tracts industriously distributed among these people, they cannot dis. criminate the truth from what may be intended to deceive and inflame. The itinerant preachers of the New Light disseminate hostility to the character and doctrines of the established clergy; while the agents of the emigrant vessels are most active in contrasting the boasted happiness, ease, and freedom, to be enjoyed in America, with what they call the oppression of their landlords. To all this delusion these unfortunate people are exposed, while the new system of statistical economy, with its cold unrelenting merciless spirit, has driven away those who contributed so materially to maintain the moral and physical energies of the state, by. the influence they exerted over the minds and actions of the people.

sheep not being then well understood, they only formed a secondary object. During the summer months the herds were driven to the shealings, or patches of pasture along the margins of the mountain streams. Temporary huts were erected to shelter those who tended the herds and. flocks and managed the dairy, the produce of which, and the cattle, the goats, and the few sheep which they could. dispose of, formed the only sources of their wealth,-the produce of the arable land being seldom sufficient to supply the wants of a family. Latterly grazing appears to have almost superseded agriculture. When a farmer could afford to enlarge his possession, he usually did so by adding to the number of his live stock, and neglecting cultivation, which at an early period was greatly more extensive. *

While this continued to be the prevailing practice among the farmers of the Highlands, the improvements in agriculture in England, which had their origin in the reign of Elizabeth and James I., were matured and reduced to system in the reign of his son Charles I. The extension of these to the northward seems, however, to have been gradual.

But from the reign of James I. of England, so slow was the march of improvement, that it did not extend to Scotland till 140 years thereafter. Potatoes, which were known in England in the time of Sir Walter Raleigh, were not introduced into Scotland, except as a garden vegetable of rarity, till after the commencement of the present reign. † In East Lothian, as late as the year 1740, few carts were to be seen, and none adapted for heavy and distant conveyFifty years ago field turnips were in very limited

ances.

• See Appendix, Z.

In the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, it is stated that Mr Prentice, in the neighbourhood of Kilsyth, was the first person who planted potatoes in the open field in Scotland: He died in 1792.

It was not till after the year 1770, that my father planted potatoes, which were the first raised in the field in his district; and it required some time and persuasion to induce his servants to eat them. This vegetable, which is now the principal food of the Highland peasantry, was then considered as incapable of supporting a man employed in active labour.