Centralization Develops the Local Life of Scotland.

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duce, chiefly from the Scottish and the kindred instance of the Irish Union (for they are the leading historical precedents on the point), what seems very much to resemble an universal political law, it is doubtful whether, in similar circumstances, we should feel more secure than did those who, on these two memorable occasions, dealt with what must be at all times one of the nicest and most delicate questions of political adjustment. By the help of that practical sagacity, which has so often supplied to our countrymen the place of deeper insight, and by the blessing which God rarely withholds from honest intention, we know that they were marvellously successful on both occasions.

Ŏf the extent to which this was the case in the former instance we shall have proof enough, if we glance at the results which may fairly be attributed to the arrangements which they made.

It was not till the dynastic question which had been pending since the Revolution was finally set at rest by the suppression of the second Rebellion, that the Union began to bear its fruits to Scotland. When that event occurred, it was not the central government alone that was strengthened, though to most persons at the time the gain probably appeared to be wholly on that side. The policy of those who had opposed the Union seemed now for the first time to be placed beyond all further hope of success; and yet, strangely enough, at that very moment, the substance of what they had contended for was attained, and this not as a direct result of the principles of the victorious party, but as a consequence of increased life and energy in those local influences, the partial diminution of which perhaps all parties had anticipated. As coincidences, far too remarkable to be accounted for on any other principles than those of cause and effect, we may mention that simultaneously with the consolidation of the central power, the trade, manufactures, and commerce of Scotland increased beyond all former precedent, agriculture was developed, the capital of the kingdom swelled to twice its former dimensions, a fresh impulse was communicated to literature, an indigenous school of philosophy arose, the medical schools of the country for the first time attained to the position which they have since maintained, and the Church and the Bar were adorned with more distinguished names than either of them could have boasted during the previous century.

Even the accession, which was in itself a sort of imperfect union, effected a decided improvement in the manners, and gave a sensible impulse to the industry of Scotland. The condition of society during Queen Mary's time, and the part of her son's reign which was spent in Scotland, as exhibited in the unquestionably authentic documents collected by Mr Chambers,' was scarcely

1 Domestic Annals of Scotland.

in any respect, except in the seeds of future energy which it contained, superior to that of Spain or Mexico at the present day. Cromwell's rule was noted as a period of further advance, and Dr Johnson was not altogether in error when, after his own peculiar fashion, he asserted that "Cromwell civilised the Scotch by conquest, and introduced by useful violence the arts of peace." Whether he had sufficient data for maintaining that amongst the arts thus acquired the making of shoes and the planting of "kail" fall to be included, may be more of a question; but there is little doubt that the prevailing notions regarding the dispensation of justice must have been rendered more precise by this means. On this subject Mr Chambers relates a well-known anecdote, too characteristic to be omitted. "Some one in a subsequent age,' he tells us, "was lauding to the Lord President Gilmore the remarkable impartiality of Cromwell's judges, and the general equity of their proceedings, when the Scottish judge answered, in his rough way, Deil thank them, they had neither kith nor kin!"" Even at present, there is reason to believe that we derive far more benefit morally, than we do intellectually, or even materially, from our connection with England. But for English influences, but for the salutary check which the appeal to the House of Lords, and still more to the columns of the Times exerts, many of the peculiarities of earlier days might not impossibly reappear amongst us. The Scotchman has not the Englishman's love of fair play; his newspapers, except those of the extremest political shades, are habitually silent before authority; and such a publication as Punch, even if we possessed the wit, would be impossible in Scotland, from mere want of moral courage.

It is by no means inappropriate, even at the present day, that we should call to mind the actual features of the society of independent Scotland; for it is forgetfulness of our real condition in former times, and of the besetting sins which still cleave to us, which lies at the bottom of all such manifestations of mistaken national enthusiasm as have for their object a partial repeal of the political union, by the creation of a separate department of State for Scotland, presided over by a separate secretary; and which leads to those childish disputes about lions and unicorns, whereby Scotland is made ridiculous every half-century. It is true that such proposals receive no support in Scotland that is at all likely to endanger the entirely cordial relations of the united kingdoms; but it does not follow that they are entirely innoxious to Scotland itself. Those by whom they are advocated, if they possess little wisdom, are by no means deficient in generous sentiments, and in energies which, if directed to saner ends, would be productive of substantial benefits to their country.

Distinction between different kinds of Nationality.

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But it is not so much by misdirecting the enthusiasm which still shows itself from time to time in favour of Scottish nationality, as by extinguishing it in some minds, and preventing it from developing itself in others, that these false views of our national history and character, and, consequently, of what ought to be the objects of our national life, are injurious to the best interests of Scotland. When the only arguments ever used in favour of Scottish nationality are based upon assumptions as to the advantages which we enjoyed as a separate nation, which can easily be shown to be destitute of historical support; and when the only object which those who use them have in view is the restoration of some modified form of political independence, which can with equal facility be demonstrated to be both undesirable and impossible; it is not surprising that the opinion should have gained ground, that to all intents and purposes, and in every sense, it is a mere piece of antiquarian sentimentalism, which those who have anything in the shape of serious occupation had better banish from their minds at once and for ever. The two nations, it is said, if two nations they can still be called, did not differ, at the period at which our authentic history begins, in blood, in language, or in manners. With the exception of a few outlying counties, which in each were peopled by the earlier race, they were kindred offshoots from the great Teutonic stem. For a time they were separated by an unhappy war, which has long since been forgotten. A political amalgamation has led, or is daily leading, to its natural result, a complete social assimilation. The stream is thus all in one direction, and that the right direction, and why should any of us set our faces against it? Now, that there is much in this view which meets with our cordial assent, is plain, we trust, from what we have said already, and will be plainer from what we have yet to say. But the question which it is our present object to discuss is, whether this view exhausts the whole subject of the relations in which we stand, and ought to stand, to our southern fellow-countrymen. Are there, or are there not, peculiarities in the institutions of Scotland, but still more in the social, and most of all in the intellectual character of Scotchmen, which have not been as yet, and which need not necessarily be, affected by the political union of the countries, and which it is for the mutual advantage of both that we should consciously and designedly perpetuate?

Nothing is so lifeless as uniformity; and should it appear that our national peculiarities are neither discreditable to ourselves nor injurious to our neighbours, the additional variety which they give to the colouring of our insular existence might in itself be a sufficient argument for their preservation. The merest Cockney,

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when he crosses the Tweed, is pleased to feel that the moral as well as the physical landscape has changed, and that he has really done something more than pass over a bridge. But, for reasons which we shall presently explain, we believe that these peculiarities have a very much higher value than this, and that, if we can succeed in drawing a line of demarcation between the living and the dead amongst Scottish national characteristics, and in pointing to substantial interests for which Scotchmen may still legitimately contend, we shall confer a benefit on both nations, and a benefit which Englishmen will not be slow to appreciate.

Now, though the Scotch of Dr Johnson's time may scarcely have realized the possibility of separating the social and intellectual from the political nationality of Scotland, or of preserving the former without a tinge of the jealous and hostile feeling out of which both had arisen, it was, we believe, very much less to the loss of their autonomy than of their individuality that they objected. The Scotchmen of that day were by no means insensible to the benefits, at least to the material benefits, of the Union. But though they were willing to acknowledge that the prosperity of Scotland had been increased, its distinctive character, they feared, had been destroyed for ever. It had become a better land, but not a better Scotland; for its improvement had consisted, not in a development of its native qualities, but in an imitation of those of England. That such was the only avenue to prosperity and progress for the future, was insultingly asserted by Dr Johnson, and the other English writers of whom he was the type; and their own belief in the truth of the assertion formed the grievance of his Scottish contemporaries, and more or less of all the grumblers who have followed them. Sir Walter Scott was not a grumbler indeed, chiefly, perhaps, because he was not a politician; but there can be little doubt that he too entertained the same misgivings as to the possibility of a separate social and intellectual, apart from a separate political life; and that from a romantic, picturesque, and, it may be, somewhat antiquarian point of view, he mourned overit all his days. That he, in what he considered his more sober mood, believed all the disadvantages attendant on the loss of a separate national life to have been counterbalanced by far greater benefits, is probable. We know that from English antipathies he was as free, and that he appreciated the great and good qualities of Englishmen as fully, as any non-Englishman that ever existed. He was one of those who established a classical school on the English model in Edinburgh, and he sent his most promising son to be educated in England. Still all this was done under a sort of secret protest. There was at the bottom of the whole a feeling that he was conforming to what, to a person of his condition, had become a triste necessity. If he had thought it possible that, without

Sir Walter Scott's Nationality.

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prejudice to their interests and their prospects as British subjects, his children could have retained the special character of Scottish in combination with the general character of European gentlefolks, there is very little doubt that he would have preferred it to their becoming Englishmen "with a difference." "Was he right in believing this to be impossible?

There is one very common assumption which has much to do with the prevalence of this belief, and which we regard as altogether erroneous. It is generally taken for granted that the existence of a separate national character in Scotland depends on the preservation of the peculiar form in which the common language of Britain has been, and still to a considerable extent is, there spoken. To this view Lord Brougham's very interesting note will no doubt tend to give increased currency (Note vii., p. 63 of Brougham's Installation Address). But though we entirely concur with Lord Brougham in holding the dialect of Scotland to be a sister, not a daughter, of that of England,' and are glad to find that so competent a judge entertains so high an opinion of its value, we must confess to the gravest misgivings as to the possibility of its preservation as a national speech. That it has been gradually and steadily, though very slowly, disappearing, and has existed less and less in each successive generation since the Union, seems to us incontestable. At that period, probably, no Scotchman ever spoke English, except for the purpose of communicating with an Englishman, or with a view to the publication of his sentiments in England. Some fifty years later we find Smollett, in the character of honest Matthew Bramble, expressing his sense of the inconveniences attending the use of the Scottish dialect, and suggesting the propriety of " employing a few natives of England to teach the pronunciation of our vernacular tongue," by whose instrumentality, he was persuaded, that in "twenty years there would be no difference in point of dialect between the youth of Edinburgh and of London." Thirty years afterwards, Dr Johnson regarded this change as already in course of being effected. "The conversation of the Scots grows every day less unpleasing to the English; their peculiarities wear fast away; their dialect is likely to become, in half a century, provincial and rustic even to themselves. The great, the learned, the ambitious, and the vain, all cultivate the English phrase and the English pronunciation, and in splendid companies Scotch is

It is not unimportant to remark that this view has Mr Latham's authority in its favour. He mentions it as proved to a certain degree to his satisfaction, that "in lowland Scotch a number of words, though Teutonic, were never AngloSaxon; and that of the numerous Scottish Gallicisms, a large portion were introduced directly from France."-English Language, p. 101.

2 All the speeches against the Union, as well as in favour of it, were delivere in very fair, some of them in very elegant and accurate English.