less reprobate, are sufficient to plunge in utter despondency, a tender conscience, and a mind accustomed to regard the doctrines of religion with deep and mysterious awe. Some of these religious reformers, as they wish to be considered, intermix their spiritual instructions with reflections on the incapacity and negligence of the clergymen of the established church, and on the conduct of landlords, whom they compare to the taskmasters of Egypt: and it is an important fact, that, wherever the people are rendered contented and happy in their external circumstances, by the judicious and humane treatment of their landlords, and where they are satisfied with the parish minister in the discharge of his pastoral duties, no itinerant preacher has ever been able to obtain a footing, and the people retain much of their original manners, devoutly and regularly attending the parish church. *

While these seem to be the effects of religion and external circumstances combined, the differences and mutual recriminations which have taken place between the establish

• The inhabitants of a border strath in the Highlands of Perthshire were, about thirty years ago, considered the most degenerate and worst principled race in the country. Less regular in their attendance at church, litigious, almost the only smugglers in the country, horse-dealers, (or horsecoupers, as they are called in Scotland,) and, as was said, giving employment to more than one lawyer in the neighbouring town, these people have, for many years, been blessed with a humane and indulgent landlord, and a conscientious, able, and zealous clergyman. The consequences have been striking and instructive. While the population in many other parts of the country are deteriorated in character, these are improving in morals, industry, and prosperity. Regular in their attendance at church, they have lost their litigious disposition, the landlord and the minister deciding and composing their differences. They are clearing and improving their lands, paying their rents regularly, and are little addicted to smuggling. Itinerant preachers have in vain attempted to show themselves in this populous thriving district, which contains 875 inhabitants, who support themselves in this exemplary manner, and on farms, the smallness of which might seem incredible to those who know not the country, the capability of the natives, or their exertions when thus kindly treated by a patriotic landlord.

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 jus tice 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 discriminate 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.