contempt from gloomy hills assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes concealed by a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths over which the deer of the forest were chased by naked barbarians." When Dr. Johnson published an account of his journey to the Hebrides in 1773, Scotland was viewed by most Englishmen as a dreary and perilous wilderness. Only those came to look at it whose business transactions made this necessary, and they fancied that their comforts were best consulted by making the sojourn as brief as possible.

A few years later, and we were suffering from the shocks of adverse events occurring in different parts of the world. Great Britain had emerged from a severe and humiliating conflict with the states of America, which was produced and continued by the obstinacy of the king and the imbecile counsels of his ministers. We had waged war against those whose "blood, language, religion, and institutions" were derived from ourselves, and an angry and irrevocable separation followed.

France was passing through the throes of that revolution which ushered in a reign of terror unprecedented in the history of civilized nations, involving all Europe in years of war and bloodshed; and had hurled from the throne the representative of its ancient monarchy-consigning not him only, but his

D

beautiful and brave queen, to a cruel and ignominious death.

The discontents of Ireland pressed us with a nearer danger; and the united fleets of France, Spain, and Holland threatened to deprive us of that supremacy on the ocean which we had long maintained. For a time it even seemed as if our own were to lend themselves to our enemies. The mutiny at the Nore produced painful and uneasy feelings which were not soon forgotten.

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Our soldiers at any rate remained faithful; and it would have been monstrous to believe in the justice of a satire like that in which a witty writer has since spoken of them :

Though soldiers are the true support,
The natural allies of courts,

Woe to the monarch who depends

Too much on his red-coated friends.

For even soldiers sometimes think,

Nay, colonels have been known to reason!
And reasoners, whether clad in pink,

Or red, or blue, are on the brink

(Nine cases out of ten) of treason.

CHAPTER IV.

THE COUNTRY; THEN AND NOW.

LANDOWNERS formerly were necessarily restricted in their intercourse with other classes. The country was owned by men who lived constantly on their estates, were concerned in no other occupations than those afforded, and whose intimacies rarely extended beyond the circle of their own class. Lairds affected to look down on everybody who trusted to trade for support; and, until the influence of the Reform Bill was really felt, the gulf which separated the commercial and agricultural interests was not fully spanned.

Putting aside some great territorial proprietors, the others, generally speaking, were poor, and that poverty was increasing with the appearance of each new generation. Younger children had to be placed in the world, and provision for them necessarily diminished the incomes of succeeding heirs. The

system of entail, which prevailed more or less extensively in all our counties, made progress extremely difficult.

The Montgomery Act-so called after its author, Sir James Montgomery, afterwards Lord Chief Baron in Scotland-was passed in 1770, and was the first measure to afford facilities to the owners of settled estates, as it enabled them, by means of enclosing, planting, draining, and building farm-steadings, to effect permanent improvements, of which they were authorized to fix upon their successors the burden of an equitable proportion. The machinery of this Act, which confers other beneficial powers, is somewhat cumbersome and particular, but its advantages have been eagerly sought after, and its benefits correspondingly experienced.

Many years subsequently another measure (bearing the name of its distinguished author, the Earl of Aberdeen), likewise in the interest of entailed proprietors, received legislative authority; which gave them the right to make provisions for widows and younger children to a specified maximum amount, for under numerous existing title-deeds, these were wholly disproportionate to the changed circumstances of the country, and the social position of the persons concerned.

But the boon which, above all others, has been

beneficial to this class of landowners, was conferred by Sir Robert Peel, when last in office. This Act authorizes advances to be made, upon the certificates of inspectors, for the drainage of lands, repayable in twenty-two annual instalments of equal amount, at the rate of six and a half per cent., reckoning principal and interest. Loans are thus obtained on terms infinitely more advantageous than would be possible in the open market, and means are supplied for promoting the greatest agricultural improvement of the age. The general system sanctioned by government is known as "furrow drainage," and to it we are mainly indebted to my intelligent friend James Smith of Deanston, who had before earned distinction for important mechanical improvements introduced into large cotton works with which he was connected. It has led to the annihilation of those yawning chasms which older "drainers " patronized, to the disfigurement as well as inconvenience of our fields. Our climate has been benefited by the impulse given to operations of the sort. They have changed for the better the appearance of the country, and augmented the productiveness, and therefore yearly value, of the soil.

Although the advance of agriculture was checked in former days by the operation of entails and their innumerable restrictions, these measures and minor