which the nation is so deeply affected, and to
which this recreation is so strongly abhorrent.
The winter is also the season when they acquire
dancing, and indeed almost all their other in-
struction. They are taught to dance by per-
sons generally of their own number, many of
whom work at daily labour during the summer
months. The school is usually a barn, and the
arena for the performers is generally a clay floor.
The dome is lighted by candles stuck in one
end of a cloven stick, the other end of which
is thrust into the wall. Reels, strathspeys,
country- dances, and hornpipes, are here prac-
tised. The jig, so much in favour among the
English peasantry, has no place among them.
The attachment of the people of Scotland of
every rank, and particularly of the peasantry,
to this amusement, is very great. After the la-
bours of the day are over, young men and wo-
men walk many miles, in the cold and dreary
nights of winter, to these country dancing-
schools ; and the instant that the violin sounds
a Scottish air, fatigue seems to vanish, the
toil-bent rustic becomes erect, his features
brighten with sympathy ; every nerve seems
to thrill with sensation, and every artery to
vibrate with life. These rustic performers
are indeed less to be admired for grace, than
for agility and animation, and their accurate

observance



14 PREFATORY REMARKS.

observance of time. Their modes of dancing,
as well as their tunes, are common to every
rank in Scotland, and are now generally known.
In our own day they have penetrated into Eng-
land, and have established themselves even in
the circle of Royalty. In another generation
they will be naturalized in every part of the
island.

The prevalence of this taste, or rather passion
for dancing, among a people so deeply tinctured
with the spirit and doctrines of Calvin, is one
of those contradictions which the philosophic
observer so often finds in national character and
manners. It is probably to be ascribed to the
Scottish music, which, throughout all its varie-
ties, is so full of sensibility, and which, in its
livelier strains, awakes those vivid emotions that
find in dancing their natural solace and relief.

This triumph of the music of Scotland over
the spirit of the established religion, has not,
however, been obtained without long-continued
and obstinate struggles. The numerous secta-
ries who dissent from the establishment on ac-
count of the relaxation which they perceive, or
think they perceive, in the Church, from her
original doctrines and discipline, universally
condemn the practice of dancing, and the
schools where it is taught -, and the more el-
derly



PREFATORY REMARKS. 15

derly and serious part of the people, of every"]
persuasion, tolerate rather than approve these
meetings of the young of both sexes, where
dancing is practised to their spirit-stirring music,
where care is dispelled, toil is forgotten, and
prudence itself is sometimes lulled to sleep.

The Reformation, which proved fatal to the
rise of the other fine arts in Scotland, probably
impeded, but could not obstruct, the progress
of its music ; a circumstance that will convince
the impartial inquirer, that this music not only
existed previously to that aera, but had taken a
firm hold of the nation ; thus affording a proof
of its antiquity, stronger than any produced by
the researches of our antiquaries.

The impression which the Scottish music has
made on the people, is deepened by its union
with the national songs, of which various col-
lections of unequal merit are before the public.
These songs, like those of other nations, are
many of them humorous, but they chiefly treat
of love, war, and drinking. Love is the sub-
ject of the greater proportion. Without dis-
playing the higher powers of the imagination,
they exhibit a perfect knowledge of the human
heart, and breathe a spirit of affection, and
sometimes of delicate and romantic tenderness,
not to be surpassed in modern poetry, and which

the



16 PREFATORY REMARKS.

the more polished strains of antiquity have sel-
dom possessed.

The origin of this amatory character in the
rustic muse of Scotland, or of the greater num-
ber of these love-songs themselves, it would be
difficult to trace ; they have accumulated in the
silent lapse of time, and it is now perhaps im-
possible to give an arrangement of them in the
order of their date, valuable as such a record of
taste and manners would be. Their present in-
fluence on the character of the nation is, how-
ever, great and striking. To them we must at-
tribute, in a great measure, the romantic pas-
sion which so often characterizes the attach-
ments of the humblest of the people of Scot-
land, to a degree, that if we mistake not, is
seldom found in the same rank of society in
other countries. The pictures of love and hap-
piness exhibited in their rural songs, are early
impressed on the mind of the peasant, and are
rendered more attractive from the music with
which they are united. They associate them-
selves with his own youthful emotions ; they
elevate the object as well as the nature of his
attachment ; and give to the impressions of
sense the beautiful colours of imagination.
Hence in the course of his passion, a Scottish
peasant often exerts a spirit of adventure, of
which a Spanish cavalier need not be ashamed.

After



PREFATORY REMARKS. 17

After the labours of the day are over, he sets
out for the habitation of his mistress, perhaps at
many miles distance, regardless of the length or
the dreariness of the way. He approaches her
in secresy, under the disguise of night. A sig-
nal at the door or window, perhaps agreed on,
and understood by none but her, gives informa-
tion of his arrival ; and sometimes it is repeated
again and again, before the capricious fair one
will obey the summons. But if she favours his
addresses, she escapes unobserved, and receives
the vows of her lover under the gloom of twi-
light, or the deeper shade of night. Interviews
of this kind are the subjects of many of the
Scottish songs, some of the most beautiful of
which Burns has imitated or improved. In the
art which they celebrate he was perfectly skilled ;
he knew and had practised all its mysteries. In-
tercourse of this sort is indeed universal even in
the humblest condition of man in every region
of the earth. But it is not unnatural to suppose
that it may exist in a greater degree, and
in a more romantic form, among the peasantry
of a country who are supposed to be more than
commonly instructed ; who find in their rural
songs expressions for their youthful emotions;
and in whom the embers of passion are conti-
nually fanned by the breathings of a music full
of tenderness and sensibility. The direct in-
fluence of physical causes on the attach menjt
VOL. I. C between



18 PREFATORY REMARKS.

between the sexes is comparatively small, but it
is modified by moral causes beyond any other
affection of the mind. Of these, music and
poetry are the chief. Among the snows of
Lapland, and under the burning sun of Angola,
the savage is seen hastening to his mistress, and
every where he beguiles the weariness of his
journey with poetry and song.*

In appreciating the happiness and virtue of a
community, there is perhaps no single criterion
on which so much dependence may be placed,
as the state of the intercourse between the sexes.
Where this displays ardour of attachment, ac-
companied by purity of conduct, the character
and the influence of women rise in society, our
imperfect nature mounts in the scale of moral
excellence, and, from the source of this single
affection, a stream of felicity descends, which
branches into a thousand rivulets that enrich
and adorn the field of life. Where the attach-
ment between the sexes sinks into an appetite,
the heritage of our species is comparatively

poor,

* The North-American Indians, among whom the at-
tachment between the sexes is said to be weak, and love, in
the purer sense of the word, unknown, seem nearly unac-
quainted with the charms of poetry and music. See Weld's
Tour.



PREFATORY REMARKS: 19

poor, and man approaches the condition of the
brutes that perish. " If we could with safety in-
dulge the pleasing supposition that Fingal lived
and that Ossian sung,"* Scotland, judging from
this criterion, might be considered as ranking
high in happiness and virtue in very remote
ages. To appreciate her situation by the same
criterion in our own times, would be a delicate
and a difficult undertaking. After considering
the probable influence of her popular songs and
her national music, and examining how far the
effects to be expected from these are supported
by facts, the inquirer would also have to ex-
amine the influence of other causes, and parti-
cularly of her civil and ecclesiastical institutions,
by which the character, and even the manners
of a people, though silently and slowly, are
often powerfully controlled. In the point of
view in which we are considering the subject,
the ecclesiastical establishments of Scotland may
be supposed peculiarly favourable to purity of
conduct. The dissoluteness of manners among:
the catholic clergy, which preceded, and in
some measure produced the reformation, led to
an extraordinary strictness on the part of the re-
formers, and especially in that particular in
which the licentiousness of the clergy had been
carried to its greatest height the intercourse

C 2 between

* Gibbon.



20 PREFATORY REMARKS.

between the sexes. On this point, as on all
others connected with austerity of manners, the
disciples of Calvin assumed a greater severity than
those of the protestant episcopal church. The
punishment of illicit connexion between the
sexes was, throughout all Europe, a province
which the clergy assumed to themselves ; and
the church of Scotland, which at the reformation
renounced so many powers and privileges, at that
period took this crime under her more especial
jurisdiction.* AVhere pregnancy takes place
without marriage, the condition of the female
causes the discovery, and it is on her, therefore,
in the first instance, that the clergy and elders of
the church exercise their zeal. After examina-
tion before the kirk-session touching the circum-
stances! of her 1 guilt, she must endure a public
penance, and sustain a public rebuke from the
pulpit, for three Sabbaths successively, in the
face of the congregation to which she belongs,
and thus have her weakness exposed, and her
shame blazoned. The sentence is the same with
respect to the male j but how much lighter the
punishment ! It is well known that this dreadful
law, worthy of the iron minds of Calvin and of
Knox, has often led to consequences, at the very
mention of which human nature recoils.

While

* See Appendix, No. I. Note C.



BEFATORY REMARKS. 21

While the punishment of incontinence pre-
scribed by the institutions of Scotland, is severe,
the culprits have an obvious method of avoiding
it, afforded them by the law respecting marriage,
the validity of which requires neither the cere-
monies of the church, nor any other ceremonies,
but simply the deliberate acknowledgment of
each other as husband and wife, made by the
parties before witnesses, or in any other way that
gives legal evidence of such an acknowledgment
having taken place. And as the parties them-
selves fix the date of their marriage, an oppor-
tunity is thus given to avoid the punishment,
and repair the consequences, of illicit gratifica-
tion. Such a degree of laxity respecting so se-
rious a contract might produce much confusion
in the descent of property, without a still farther
indulgence ; but the law of Scotland legitimating
all children born before wedlock, on the subse-
quent marriage of their parents, renders the actual
date of the marriage itself of little consequence.*
Marriages contracted in Scotland without the ce-
remonies of the church are considered as irregu-
lar, and the parties usually submit to a rebuke
for their conduct, in the face of their respective
congregations, which is not however necessary
t6 render the marriage valid. Burns, whose

marriage,

* See Appendix , No. 1. Note J).



22 PREFATORY REMARKS.

marriage, it will appear, was irregular, does not
seem to have undergone this part of the disci-
pline of the church.

Thus, though the institutions of Scotland are
in many particulars favourable to a conduct
among the peasantry founded on foresight and
reflection, on the subject of marriage the reverse
of this is true. Irregular marriages, it may be
naturally supposed, are often improvident ones,
in whatever rank of society they occur. The
children of such marriages, poorly endowed by
their parents, find a certain degree of instruction
of easy acquisition ; but the comforts of life,
and the gratifications of ambition, they find of
more difficult attainment in their native soil ;
and thus the marriage laws of Scotland conspire
with other circumstances, to produce that habit
of emigration, and spirit of adventure, for which
the people are so remarkable.

The manners and appearance of the Scottish
peasantry do not bespeak to a stranger the degree
of their cultivation. In their own country, their
industry is inferior to that of the same descrip-
tion of men in the southern division of the
island. Industry and the useful arts reached
Scotland later than England ; and though their
advance has been rapid there, the effects pro-
duced are as yet far inferior both in reality and

in



PREFATORY REMARKS. 23

in appearance. The Scottish farmers have in
general neither the opulence nor the comforts of
those of England, neither vest the same capital
in the soil, nor receive from it the same return.
Their clothing, their food, and their habita-
tions, are almost every where inferior.* Their
appearance in these respects corresponds with the
appearance of their country ; and under the
operation of patient industry, both are improv-
ing. Industry and the useful arts came later in-
to Scotland than into England, because the se-
curity of property came later. With causes of
internal agitation and warfare, similar to those
which occurred to the more southern nation, the
people of Scotland were exposed to more immi-
nent hazards, and more extensive and destructive
spoliation, from external war. Occupied in the
maintenance of their independence against their
more powerful neighbours, to this were necessa-
rily sacrificed the arts of peace, and at certain
periods, the flower of their population. And
when the union of the crowns produced a secu-
rity from national wars with England, for the

century



* These remarks are confined to the class of farmers j
the same corresponding inferiority will not be found in the
condition of the cottagers and labourers, at least in the ar-
ticle of food, as those who examine this subject impartially
will soon discover.



24 PREFATORY REMARKS.

century succeeding, the civil wars common to
both divisions of the island, and the dependence,
perhaps the necessary dependence of the Scot-
tish councils on those of the more powerful
kingdom, counteracted this disadvantage. Even
the union of the British nations was not, from
obvious causes, immediately followed by all the
benefits which it was ultimately destined to pro-
duce. At length, however, these benefits are
distinctly felt, and generally acknowledged. Pro-
perty is secure ; manufactures and commerce
increasing, and agriculture is rapidly improving
in Scotland. As yet, indeed, the farmers are
not, in general, enabled to make improvements
out of their own capitals, as in England ; but
the landholders, who have seen and felt the ad-
vantages resulting from them, contribute towards
them with a liberal hand. Hence property, as
well as population, is accumulating rapidly on
the Scottish soil ; and the nation, enjoying a
great part of the blessings of Englishmen, and
retaining several of their own happy institutions,
might be considered, if confidence could be
placed in human foresight, to be as yet only in
an early stage of their progress. Yet there are
obstructions in their way. To the cultivation of
the soil are opposed the extent and the strictness
of the entails ; to the improvement of the people,
the rapidly increasing use of spirituous liquors,
a detestable practice, which includes in its con-
sequences



PREFATORY REMARKS. 25

sequences almost every evil, physical and mo-
ral.* The peculiarly social disposition of the
Scottish peasantry exposes them to this practice.
This disposition, which is fostered by their na-
tional songs and music, is perhaps characteristic
of the nation at large. Though the source of
many pleasures, it counteracts by its conse-
quences the effects of their patience, industry,
and frugality, both at home and abroad, of which
those especially who have witnessed the progress
of Scotsmen in other countries, must have known
many striking instances.

Since the Union, the manners and language
of the people of Scotland have no longer a
standard among themselves, but are tried by the
standard of the nation to which they are united.
Though their habits are far from being flexi-
ble, yet it is evident that their manners and dia-
lect are undergoing a rapid change. Even the
farmers of the present day appear to have less of
the peculiarities of their country in their speech,

than



* The amount of the duty on spirits distilled in Scot-
land is now upwards of 250,0001. annually. In 1777, it
did not reach 8,0001. The rate of the duty has indeed been
raised, but, making every allowance, the increase of con-
sumption must be enormous. This is independent of the
duty on malt, &c, malt-liquor, imported spirits, and wine.



26 PREFATORY REMARKS.

than the men of letters of the last generation.
Burns, who never left the island, nor penetrated
farther into England than Carlisle on the one
hand, or Newcastle on the other, had less
of the Scottish dialect than Hume, who lived
for many years in the best society of England
and France , or perhaps than Robertson, who
wrote the English language in a style of such
purity; and if he had been in other respects
fitted to take a lead in the British House of
Commons, his pronunciation would neither have
fettered his eloquence, nor deprived it of its due
effect.

A striking particular in the character of the
Scottish peasantry, is one which it is hoped will
not be lost the strength of their domestic at-
tachments. The privations to which many pa-
rents submit for the good of their children, and
particularly to obtain for them instruction,
which they consider as the chief good, has al-
ready been noticed. If their children live and
prosper, they have their certain reward, not
merely as witnessing, but as sharing of their
prosperity. Even in the humblest ranks of the
peasantry, the earnings of the children may ge-
nerally be considered as at the disposal of their
parents; perhaps in no country is so large a por-
tion of the wages of labour applied to the sup-
port and comfort of those whose days of labour

are



PREFATORY REMARKS. 27

are past. A similar strength of attachment ex-
tends through all the domestic relations.

Our poet partook largely of this amiable cha-
racteristic of his humble compeers ; he was also
strongly tinctured with another striking feature
which belongs to them, a partiality for his na-
tive country, of which many proofs may be
found in his writings. This, it must be confess-
ed, is a very strong and general sentiment among
the natives of Scotland, differing however in its
character, according to the character of the dif-
ferent minds in which it is found ; in some ap-
pearing a selfish prejudice, in others, a generous
affection.

An attachment to the land of their birth is, in-
deed, common to all men. It is found among
the inhabitants of every region of the earth,
from the arctic to the antarctic circle, in all the
vast variety of climate, of surface, and of civili-
zation. To analyze this general sentiment, to
trace it through the mazes of association up to
the primary affection in which it has its source,
would neither be a difficult nor an unpleasing
labour. On the first consideration of the sub-
ject, we should perhaps expect to find this at-
tachment strong in proportion to the physical
advantages of the soil ; but inquiry, far from
confirming this supposition, seems rather to lead

to



28 PREFATORY REMARKS.

to an opposite conclusion In those fertile re-
gions where beneficent nature yields almost
spontaneously whatever is necessary to human
wants, patriotism, as well as every other gene-
rous sentiment, seems weak and languid. In
countries less richly endowed, where the com-
forts, and even necessaries of life, must be pur-
chased by patient toil, the affections of the mind,
as well as the faculties of the understanding, im-
prove under exertion, and patriotism flourishes
amidst its kindred virtues. Where it is neces-
sary to combine for mutual defence, as well as
for the supply of common wants, mutual good-
will springs from mutual difficulties and labours,
the social affections unfold themselves, and ex-
tend from the men with whom we live, to the
soil on which we tread. It will perhaps be
found, indeed, that our affections cannot be ori-
ginally called forth, but by objects capable, or
supposed capable, of feeling our sentiments, and
of returning them ; but when once excited, they
are strengthened by exercise, they are expanded
by the powers of imagination, and seize more
especially on those inanimate parts of creation,
which form the theatre on which we have first
felt the alternations of joy and sorrow, and first
tasted the sweets of sympathy and regard. If
this reasoning be just, the love of our country,
although modified, and even extinguished in in-
dividuals by the chances and changes of life,

may



PREFATORY REMARKS, 29

may be presumed, in our general reasonings, to
be strong among a people, in proportion to their
social, and more especially to their domestic af-
fections. In free governments it is found more
active than in despotic ones, because, as the in-
dividual becomes of more consequence in the
community, the community becomes of more
consequence to him ; in small states it is gene-
rally more active than in large ones, for the same,
reason, and also because the independence of a
small community being maintained with diffi-
culty, and frequently endangered, sentiments of
patriotism are more frequently excited. In
mountainous countries it is generally found
more active than in plains, because there the
necessities of life often require a closer union of
the inhabitants ; and more especially because in
such countries, though less populous than plains,
the inhabitants, instead of being scattered equally
over the whole, are usually divided into small
communities on the sides of their separate val-
leys, and on the banks of their respective streams;
situations well calculated to call forth and to
concentrate the social affections, amidst scenery
that acts most powerfully on the sight, and makes
a lasting impression on the memory. It may
also be remarked that mountainous countries are
often peculiarly calculated to nourish sentiments
of national pride and independence, from the in-
fluence of history on the affections of the mind.

In



SO PREFATORY REMARKS.

In such countries, from their natural strength,
inferior nations have maintained their independ-
ence against their more powerful neighbours,
and valour, in all ages, has made its most suc-
cessful efforts against oppression. Such coun-
tries present the fields of battle, where the tide
of invasion was rolled back, and where the ashes
of those rest, who have died in defence of their
nation !

The operation of the various causes we have
mentioned is doubtless more general and more
permanent, where the scenery of a country, the
peculiar manners of its inhabitants, and the mar-
tial achievements of their ancestors are embodied
in national songs, and united to national music.
By this combination, the ties that attach men
to the land of their birth are multiplied and
strengthened; and the images of infancy, strongly
associating with the generous affections, resist
the influence of time, and of new impressions ;
they often survive in countries far distant, and
amidst far different scenes, to the latest periods
of life, to sooth the heart with the pleasures of
memory, when those of hope die away.

If this reasoning be just, it will explain to us
why, among the natives of Scotland, even of