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SOMETHING SCOTTISH.

THERE is in the present condition of Scotland a remarkable combination of two different states of society. In many parts of the country an ancient condition of the people remains. In the great cities, wealth, manners, and intellectual cultivation, have made a sudden and great advance; so that the inhabitant of Scotland may see in his own country the splendour of civilized life, and its original indigent simplicity.

The strong virtues of primitive manners grow in part out of the strong affections which belong to the simple states of society, and in part out of that severity of condition which strengthens the human being to all human endurance, and, by early and habitual privation, gives him the capacity of the highest self-denial. Much, too, is to be ascribed to that sort of felt religion which descends upon peaceful seats of unviolated simplicity, and diffuses itself unconsciously over the land. The moral spirit, and the great fervour of the affections, which belong to men in this condition, disappear from advancing society. If you were to trace the effect upon one man in such a state of the influences which make him moral, you would find them arising out of the circumstances of his daily occupation, his solitary walk up the mountain,-his

The native

lonely tasks and toil-born contentment. condition of a peasantry is full of strong unviolated relations,-binding all hearts alike under common beliefs, and uniting them in common sympathies. But in Scotland, beyond the mere native condition of a peasant or of a shepherd, are the remains of old time, binding them more strongly to the place of their nativity; -the old traditionary songs, even without direct attachments, the austere religion which persecution has left, the still cherished renown of the great defenders of old-Wallace or Bruce,-whose deeds yet burn in lowly hearts and have an existence. All these make the man feel himself to be a little integral part of a mighty whole;-all these, by extending that unity which is felt among the contemporary members of a community into the Great Past,-into the mightier and remote ages,—give magnitude to that unity, and make it in every one's eyes something enduring, indestructible, and awful. Now, these paint a country in which the vales, the glens, the brooks, and the spirit of the soil, breathe character up into men's hearts; therefore there is at this day growing up, upon ten thousand portions of Scottish ground, that pure native untainted vigour of heart, and soul, and living blood, which belongs to the elder times. There is still,-not a work of art and invention, but the produce of the soil and the growth of nature, much of that power which belongs to the earlier times of society, and which inheres in those forceful spirits which mark the less cultivated periods of every nation's history.

But there is at the same time great rising prosperity, and the power almost immeasurable in human

affairs, which subsists in wealth;-there is ardent intellectual strife;-there are set before the desires and ambition of the nation in its higher orders, many of the loftiest, happiest refinements of civilization,its delicate intellectual pleasures,-its gracious courtesies, shedding a gentle sunshine upon life,—its arts, -its separations of minds to grave and responsible offices,-enabling men to fulfil the longing of their genius, because it has so subjected their ordinary necessities, that it can permit men to live by fulfilling a destination drawn from their highest and purest mind.

The true and essential patriotism of such a people does not consist properly in a vowed service to the country, but in a feeling towards it, blending with all the spirit, a feeling which begins in and belongs to our rejoicing in existence; for, by that power of love and joy, we love and rejoice in that form in which existence is opened to us, and therefore we love the soil, the manners, the people, the ancestors, the renown to which we are born. It is not an assiduous diligent desire to gather into that land the riches of the earth, but an exultation in its own peculiar riches, a sense for the blessedness which breathes upon us in the Scottish air that has blown around our infancy. The spirit it implies is a spirit humbling itself to the good that is given it in possession; -not restless, not aspiring, but brooding and contented.

There is most of this spirit in Burns, of any one; he paints living Scotland, and Scotland has answered and acknowledged him. Both his most beautiful and solemn delineations, and those which are playful, and

even rude with humour-it is all the same,—it is portraiture breathing a living spirit; and those which are for momentary mirth and laughter, have not less the national character, nor do they less in their kind serve to maintain it. They are not meant to exalt, or adorn, or improve the image-they reflect it.

country, but they give its The joy in what is, in what Burns has known by living in the midst of it—his native pleasures-his native existence-is there.

What should be warred against is that species of intellect and desire,-that temper, that philosophy which loves not the things which are, but which devises new things,-which invents imaginations of its own, and would shape to them the things of this life. What is wanted, then, is a government of the spirit of our feelings,-a due recognition of what our country requires, and a conforming of our heart accordingly ;-for this sort of patriotism-this filial, natural, pious love, grows up of itself in the hearts of the children of a country in her simpler times; but, in an age like ours, wealth and instruction lift men's hearts out of the lap of their country, and they need, by thought, to recover to themselves that fection which instinct no longer supplies. of wealth is a spirit of restless alteration. much of the old character of a country is wedded to its poverty !-Wealth disdains the antique rudeness of its foster-home, and burns to be the inmate of palaces. That which was loved is spurned. Hence the delight and the unappeased desire the rich man feels to mark every thing that surrounds him with the impress of his own liking. His dwelling, and the earth around it, and all the circumstances and incidents of

proper af

The spirit
Look how

every day, must bring to him the consciousness of his own controlling power; therefore he demolishes rugged antiquity, sweeps away the shaggy wildness of nature, and tames the earth to the Genius of Luxury. There is to his mind a sense of something even painful in simple Nature, as if her character were that of indigence. Thus the changes he delights to effect comprehend often the ancient character of the soil and its natives, and he sees no charm in the beautiful weather-stains of poverty.

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