Of Fort George I fhall not attempt to give any account. I cannot delineate it fcientifically, and a loofe and popular defcription is of ufe only when the imagination is to be amufed. There was every where an appearance of the utmost neatnefs and regularity. But my fuffrage is of little value, because this and Fort Auguftus are the only garrifons that I ever faw.

We did not regret the time spent at the fort, though in confequence of our delay we came fomewhat late to Inverness, the town which may properly be called the capital of the Highlands. Hither the inhabitants of the inland parts come to be fupplied with what they cannot make for themselves: Hither the young nymphs of the mountains and valleys are sent for education, and as far as my obfervation has reached, are not fent in vain.

INVERNESS.

Inverness was the laft place which had a regular communication by high roads with the fouthern counties. All the ways beyond it have, I believe, been made by the foldiers in this century. At Inverness therefore Cromwell, when he subdued Scotland, ftationed a garrifon, as at the boundary of the Highlands. The foldiers feem to have incorporated afterwards with the inhabitants, and to have peopled the place with an English race; for the language of this town has been long confidered as peculiarly elegant.

Here is a castle, called the caftle of Macbeth, the walls of which are yet standing. It was no very capacious edifice, but ftands upon a rock fo high and steep, that I think it was once not aceffible, but by the help of ladders, or a bridge. Over against

against it, on another hill, was a fort built by Cromwell, now totally demolifhed; for no faction of Scotland loved the name of Cromwell, or had any defire to continue his.

memory.

Yet what the Romans did to other nations, was in a great degree done by Cromwell to the Scots; he civilized them by conqueft, and introduced by ufeful violence the arts of peace. I was told at Aberdeen, that the people learned from Cromwell's foldiers to make fhoes and to plant kail.

How they lived without kail, it is not eafy to guess: They cultivate hardly any other plant for common tables, and when they had not kail they probably had nothing. The numbers that barefoot are go ftill fufficient to fhew that fhoes may be fpared: They are not yet confidered as neceffaries of life; for tall boys, not otherwife

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wife meanly dreffed, run without them in the freets and in the islands; the fons of gentlemen pafs feveral of their firft years with naked feet.

I know not whether it be not peculiar to the Scots to have attained the liberal, without the manual arts, to have excelled in ornamental knowledge, and to have wanted not only the elegancies, but the conveniencies of common life. Literature foon after its revival found its way to Scotland, and from the middle of the fixteenth century, almoft to the middle of the feventeenth, the politer ftudies were very diligently purfued. The Latin poetry of Delicia Poetarum Scotorum would have done honour to any nation, at leaft till the publication of May's Supplement the Englifh had very little to oppofe.

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Yet men thus ingenious and inquifitive were content to live in total ignorance of

the

the trades by which human wants are fupplied, and to fupply them by the groffeft means. Till the Union made them acquainted with English manners the culture of their lands was unfkilful, and their domeftick life unformed; their tables were coarse as the feafts of Efkimeaux, and their houfes filthy as the cottages of Hot

tentots.

Since they have known that their condition was capable of improvement, their progrefs in useful knowledge has been rapid and uniform. What remains to be done they will quickly do, and then wonder, like me, why that which was fo neceffary and fo eafy was fo long delayed. But they must be for ever content to owe to the English that elegance and culture, which, if they had been vigilant and active, perhaps the English might have owed to

them.