cautious of giving offence, and desirous of recommending themselves by an obliging deportment, by an obsequious attention, and by a studied expression of zeal and affection. The habits produced by such a situation are doubtless not very favorable to plain dealing and sincerity, however much they may fit the possessor for the intercourse of the world, and render him expert in smoothing the frowns, or improving the smiles of fortune.

A strong predilection for the learned professions is very prevalent in Scotland, and men of an active disposition are readily induced to migrate to foreign countries for the purpose of advancing their fortune.

Intelligence, sagacity, and disposition to learning descends to the common people in Scotland. Since the reign of James VI. public schools are established in every parish to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, and even Latin and Greek, and several branches of mathematics. The Scottish nation in general received an intellectual stimulus at the reformation, which produced energy and activity, not only in examining religious opinions, but in the general investigation of truth.

Of all the common trades in the hands of the vulgar, that of gardening approaches the nearest to a liberal profession. A gardener easily becomes a botanist, and if he knows any thing of the medical virtues of plants, he is exalted by the credulity of his neighbours into a species of physician. In Scotland every gardener learns to draw blood, and thus becomes a surgeon. These advantages have produced a predilection for this

C 2

employ

employment, and Scotland now has the merit of furnishing a large proportion of the gardens over Great Britain.

The population, according to the statistical account, appears to be about one million and a half, which amounts to no more than fifty-seven inhabitants to each square mile; its superficial contents being computed at 27,793 square miles, a proportion of about one third to that of Ireland. This defect of population arises partly from the continual emigrations to America, and partly from the mountainous nature of the country, amounting perhaps, to one half not susceptible of cultivation.

THE

THE

HISTORY

OF

SCOTLAND.

CHAP. I.

From the most ancient Records to the Union of the Scots and Picts.

THE origin of the first inhabitants of Scotland

is uncertain. Britain lying contiguous at three points, to Gaul, to Ireland, and to Scandinavia, may have received inhabitants from these three different countries. From Gaul it has been confessedly supplied with the greater part of its first occupants. Colonists have mutually migrated from the Scottish and the Irish shores; and if the adjacent coasts of Scandinavia were indeed peopled before the Celts or Belgæ could penetrate into the northern parts of Britain, we might with some reason conclude, that the first inhabitants of ancient Caledonia were a Scandinavian colony. Let us rather confess our uncertainty than fondly substitute conjecture for historical truth.

The history of Scotland commences with the vic tories of the Romans over its ancient inhabitants. Agricola, the general of Domitian, displayed the triumphantensigns of Rome at the foot of the Grampian mountains. The various tribes of the natives in vain combined to oppose his progress. The scenes are

still

still distinguished on which the disorder and the unsteady impetuosity of the Caledonians yielded to Roman discipline and Roman valour.

But Agricola's victories were too splendid not to move the jealousy of the tyrant whom he served. Ile was prevented by his recal from penetrating to the most northern limits of Scotland, and from completing the conquest of all the British isles.

Before he left the island he had considerably enlarged the limits of the Roman empire, and had fortified the isthmus between the Firths of Forth and Clyde by a line of military posts.

For more than thirty years after this period, all that we can gather from the Roman historians is, that the provincial Britons struggled from time to time to recover their freedom, while the free natives were perpetually renewing their inroads, and the Romans, wearied out by the incessant conflict, insensibly contracted the limits of their dominions.

At length Adrian ascended the Imperial throne. It was the policy of this emperor to visit in person the various provinces of his dominions. The state in which he found Britain induced him to relinquish a large extent of territory to the invasion of the barbarians of Caledonia, and to fortify those provinces which were yet defensible, by an earthen wall extending between' the mouth of the river Tyne and the Solway Firth.

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Thus was all Scotland, in some measure, abandoned to the Caledonians and their British allies,. who had been by them encouraged to shake off the Roman yoke.

But

But yhat the necessities of one period, or the policy of one emperor, had made the Romans relinqush, a change of circumstances, or of counses, soon prompted them to resume. Urbicus, under Adrian's successor, reconquered the southen division of Scotland, and raised another earthen wall for a barrier to protect his conquest; nearly in the same line, in which Agricola had established his fortified posts, between the Firths of Forth and Clyde.

The Meato, (the people inhabiting the intermediate space between these two walls, called Pretextures), thus by turns lost and recovered their freedom. But they never rested in patient submission to the Roman yoke.

In the reign of Antoninus, the philosopher, they gain struggled to expel their foreign lords. Their efforts were unsuccessful, or were at least speedly repressed by Calpurnius Agricola.

In the succeeding reign of Comodus, the Caledonians burst through the barrier which Urbicus had formed to restrain their incursions, excited the Meate to join their expedition, and penetrated with fierce impetuosity into the pro vinces beyond Adrian's wall. They were soon defeated and repulsed by Marcellus. But this general was succeeded by a series of weak.

base commanders, hated or despised by their own troops, and unfit to guard the frontier of a de. clining empire.

At length Pertinax, destined to die emperor, and after him Clodius Albinus, who also assumed the Purple, restored order and discipline among the Roman troops in Britain, and awed the incroaching barbarians But the ambition of the empire,