disguised contempt "of those, whose fa "thers they would have disdained to set with the dogs of their flock.”

In some instances, their capacity was very moderate,-in all, it wanted every kind of cultivation; yet, under all these disadvantages and humiliations, such was the inherent power of the lurking principle of honourable pride and generous shame, in supporting these fallen and wretched outcasts, that in no single instance did they by profligacy or dishonesty disgrace their origin.

Despised by the world, they respected each other. Met together like knight errants in disguise, and consoled each other with a proud retrospection of the past, and a sanguine anticipation of the fu ture. Sanguine hope, like popular pro`phecy, sometimes causes the event it anticipates. There is not one of all these children of calamity who survived their early struggles, but who have contrived,

by persevering industry, or undaunted courage and enterprise, to climb up to their original station; and many have left families highly respectable, and even opulent, on whom they have been most careful to bestow all those advantages of education, of which disastrous circumstances had deprived themselves.

This striking proof of the effect of what one may call a poetical and traditionary education, even where its force was diminished by distance, and its traces almost erazed by early banishment, may give some idea of its power over the mind, subject from childhood to its influence.

This national character, singular as it was, and invested with features of distinction, that, when investigated, appear both noble and amiable, was not even, in ancient times, discerned or understood by strangers.

The low country was inhabited by a

people driven at a later period from the south, by successive invaders and oppres- . sors, who were farther advanced in the arts of industry, and the progress of civilization than the highlanders, whom these last regarded as intruders, and who had scarce any thing in common with them.

Though their mountain chiefs were in due time brought to yield a reluctant fealty to the Scottish monarchs, their followers were scarce conscious of this submission, and most unwilling to believe, that a greater man than their own chief existed. No two nations ever were more distinct, or differed more completely from each other, than the highlanders and lowlanders; and the sentiments with which they regarded each other, was at best a kind of smothered animosity.

The lowlander considered the highlander as a fierce and savage depredator,

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speaking a 'barbarous language, and inhabiting a gloomy and barren region, which fear and prudence forbid all strangers to explore. The attractions of his social habits, strong attachments, and courteous manners, were confined to his glens and to his kindred. All the pathetic and sublime charms of his poetry, and all the wild wonders of his records, were concealed in a language difficult to acquire, and utterly despised as the jargon of barbarians by their southern neighbours. If such were the light in which the cultivators of the soil regarded the hunters, graziers, and warriors of the mountains, their contempt was am ply repaid by their high spirited neighbours.

They again regarded the lowlanders, as a very inferior mongrel race of intruders; sons of little men, without he roism, ancestry, or genius. Mechanical drudges, who could neither sleep with

out on the snow, compose extempore songs, recite long tales of wonder or of woe, or live without bread and without shelter, for weeks together, follow-~ ing the chase. Whatever was mean or effeminate, whatever was dull, slow, me--chanical, or torpid, was in the highlands imputed to the lowlanders, and exemplified by some allusion to them: while, in the low country, every thing ferocious or unprincipled-every species of aukwardness or ignorance-of prideor of insolence, was imputed to the highlanders.

No two communities, generally speaking, could hate each other more cordially, or despise each other more heartily. Much of this hatred, however, proceeded from ignorance of each other's charac ter and manners. How this ignorance should have continued so long, and how this mutual prejudice was so obstinate