A PLAIN FOREST-DINNER.

163

qualities o' each, and maist savoury and salutary is the ultimate result.

North. Tibbie, a bottle of Richardson's ULTIMate Result. [They attend to the Result.

Shepherd. Noo, I ca' this a meetin o' the True Temperance Society. We are three auldish men, and hae had a hard day's wark o' amusement-and it canna be denied that we hae earned baith our meat and our drink. Fowl and fish we hae wan frae air and water by our ain skill, and naebody 'll be the puirer on account o' this day's pastime, or this nicht's- -no even gin we had taen each o' us anither tureen. It's heartsome to hear the gillies lauchin at their vittals, in their ain dinin-room, and frae this day, Mr Awmrose may date his lease o' a new life. That's richt, Tibbie-tak them ben the sawmon, and put you down the aipple-pie, the can o' cream, and the cheese.—(TIBBIE takes them ben the salmon, and puts down the apple-pie, the can of cream, and the cheese).—I'll defy a man to be a glutton as lang's he's obedient to the dictates o' a healthy natural appeteet, inspired by air and exercise in the Forest; and though I'm an enemy to the mixin o' mony different dishes in the stamack at ae diet, yet sic soups, and sic sawmon, and sic aipple-pie, and sic cheese, will a' lie amicably thegither, nor is there ony sense in sayin that sic porter will jummle wi' sic The champagne has been rectified, and a's safe. I ca't a plain, simple, manly, substantial, Forest denner, in Tibbie's ain unpretendin style; and hadna we limited it to our ain killin, I ken we should hae had the hin' quarter o' a sheep that's been in pickle sin' the last day o' hairst, and a breist o' veal frae Bourhope, as white's a hen.

cream.

[TIBBIE sets down, with a smile, her own two dishes of mutton and veal, with a fresh peck of potatoes from the drippingpan, and ditto of mashed turnips.

North. Excellent creature!

Shepherd. She's a' that-sir.

North. How virtuous is humble life! but a Conservative can understand the

poor.

Question, if any one domestic life of the

Shepherd. Nane else in our day has observed it in Scotland.

North. It is sustained by contentment- a habit of the heart and continuous custom seems essential to the forma

164

EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND.

tion of that happiest of all habits which grows out of the quiet experiences of days-weeks-months-years-all so like one another in their flow, that the whole of life is felt, with its occasional breaks and interruptions, to be one, and better for them that under Providence enjoy it, than any other lot which at times their hearts may long for, and their imaginations picture.

Shepherd. The same stream flowin alang channels and greener banks and braes.

North. Changes for the better, let us believe-and I do believe it are almost invariably taking place in such conditions, as society at large progresses in knowledge, and as there opens before all minds a wider and higher sphere of feeling and of thought accessible through instruction.

Shepherd. In many respects, sir, the instruction is better. North. Such belief is consolatory to all who love their kind, and lament to know that there is so much wretchedness in this weary world.

Shepherd. Education in the rural districts o' Scotland, I doubt not, is mair carefu' and comprehensive than it was forty years ago; would that it were as sure, sir, that the hearts o' young and auld are as sensible to the habits and duties o' religion! It may be sae—yet, methinks, there is no the same earnestness and solemnity in the furrowed faces o' the auld-the same modesty and meekness in the smooth faces o' the young sitters in the kirk on Sabbath, which I remember regarding sae reverently and sae affectionately half a century ago! I fear there are mair lukewarm and cauldrife Christians in the Forest wha consider Gospel truths like ony ither truths, and the Bible like ony ither gude book—not the Book in comparison wi' which a' ithers were worthless— for not effectual like it to shed licht on the darkness o' the grave! Yet I may be mistaen; for a' sweet thochts are sweeter, and a' haly thochts are halier, that carry my heart back to the mornin o' life! And as the dew-draps seem to my een to hae then been brichter and purer than they are noo-though that can scarcely be-and the lang simmer-days far langer, as weel as the gloamins langer too—which wasna possiblesae human life itsel may be as fu' o' a' that's gude noo as was then; and the change-a sad and sair ane as I sometimes feel—in me, and no in them about me,-and the same

it

THE AGE OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.

165

lament for the same reason continue to be made by all that are waxin auld-to the end o' time.

North. Ay, James, memory so beauties and sanctifies all we loved in youth with her own mournful light, that it is not in our power-we have not the heart-to compare them with the kindred realities encircling our age; but for their own dear, sweet, sad sakes alone-and for the sake of the grass on their graves-we hold them religiously aloof from the affections and the objects of our affections of a later day—in our intercommunion with them it is that we most devoutly believe in heaven.

Shepherd. You're growin ower grave, sir, and maunna gie way to the mood, lest it get the better o' you- though it's natural to you, and, I confess, sits weel on your frosty pow. The warld's better acquented noo wi' the character o' Christopher North than it was some scores o' years sin'; and the truth is, that, like a' them that's been baith wutty and wise, he is constitutionally a melancholy man, and aften at the verra time that he seems to be writin wi' a sunbeam, "draps a sad serious tear upon his playful pen!"

North. The philosophy of truth, James, is pensive; it is natural religion, and therefore humane hence all that is harsh falls away from it, all that is hateful; when purest and highest it becomes poetry-and

Shepherd. Wheesht, you mystic-and eat awa at your

mutton.

North. I am at a loss to know, James, what the friends of the people really think is the character of the people of England? Shepherd. Sae am I.

North. They tell us-if I do not mistake them—that this is the most enlightened age that has ever shone on life. They seem to apply the praise, in the first place, to mind. It is the age of useful and entertaining knowledge. But mind enlightens heart—and the two together elevate soul—and the three, like an angelic band floating in the air, connect earth with heaven by an intermediate spirit of beauty and of bliss. Shepherd. Is that what they say? For if it be, they maun be fine fallows, and I put doun my name as a member o' the union. North. They assert that knowledge is not only power, but virtue.

Shepherd. It is neither the ane nor the ither necessarily;

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EXCEPTIONS TO THE GENERAL ENLIGHTENMENT.

and I could pruve that they dinna understaun' their ain doctrine.

North. Not now, James. Let us admit their doctrine—and rejoice to know that we are the most enlightened people— physically, morally, intellectually, spiritually—that ever flourished on the face and bosom of the dædal earth.

Shepherd. I fear you and me's twa exceptions-at least I can answer for mysel-for aften when walkin in what seems to me essential licht, through the inner warld o' thocht, a' at ance it's pitch-dark! I'm like a man blind-faulded, and obleeged to grope his way out o' a wudd by the trees, no able to tell, but by a rough guess at the rind, whether he's handlin an aik, or an ash, or an elm, or a pine, or a beech, or a plane —and whatever they may be, geein himsel mony a sair knock on the head, and losin his hat amang the branches that make you desperate angry by floggin you on the face, and ruggin out your hair, as your legs get entangled amang the briers. The enlightened age-the speerit o' the age-shouldna hollow till it gets out o' the wudd, sir.

North. Good, James. But what am I to think of the panegyrists of the spirit of the age, when I am told by the same oracles that there is not a virtuous unmarried woman among the lower orders in all England?

Shepherd. You have only to think that they are a set o' inconsistent and contradictory idiwuts, and a base gang o' calumniators and obscene leears.

North. But I am a moderate man, and wish to have the inconsistency explained-or removed-the libel made less loathsome—and some apology offered to the sex.

Shepherd. Wha said it, and whare?

North. Parliament.

Shepherd. The Reform Bill, then, it seems, is no a feenal measure, sir?

North. There is no mob nowadays, James-no rabble-no swinish multitude

Shepherd. I hate that epithet.

North. So do I. No scum

No scum-but the wives, daughters, and

sisters of all the working-men of England-are prostitutes. Shepherd. A damm'd lee.

North. An infernal falsehood.

Shepherd. Yet the verra same brutes that hae said that o'

A LIBEL ON ENGLISHWOMEN REPELLED.

167 a' the English lassies in laigh life, wull break out on me and you for swearin at a Noctes ?

North. We have heard the Lord Chancellor of England, and the Lord Bishop of London, announce this article of the Christian creed-which unless we all hold, verily we cannot be saved that the sin of incontinence is infinitely worse in a woman than in a man.

Shepherd. I thocht we had gude authority for believing woman to be the weaker vessel.

North. That authority is discarded; for be it now known to all men that they—not the maidens by whom they have been wooed-are the victims of seduction.

Shepherd. That doctrine 'ill no gang doun; the kintra's no ripe for 't yet; the verra pride o' man 'ill no alloo him to bolt it; the unregenerate sinner, wicked as he is, daurna, even in his seared conscience, sae offend again' the law o' nature written by the finger o' God ineffaceably on his heart.

North. If the sin be so great in woman, why does man suffer her to commit it?

Shepherd. Ay, ye may ask that at the Chancellor and the Bishop, and pause till Doomsday for a reply. She canna commit it by hersel; he is airt and pairt; no merely an accessory afore and after the act; but

North. Blind, brutal balderdash, born of the brothel.

Shepherd. In a far waur place-situate in a darker region than the darkest lane in a' Lunnon.

North. Thus fortified by Law and Religion, a Christian Legislature sets itself solemnly to work, to guard and save the victims of seduction from suffering any pecuniary loss from their misfortune, and enact that we poor, weak, deluded males shall not henceforth be burdened by the support of the illegitimate offspring we have been bedivelled to beget, but that where the chief crime lies, there shall be dree'd the sole punishment, and that the female fiends must either suckle their sinconceived at their own dugs, dry-drawn by penury, or toss them into a workhouse!1

Shepherd. Strang-strang-strang.

1 "One of the principles of the new poor-law, as amended by the Whigs, was, that if a woman had illegitimate offspring, she should have no claim on the father towards its maintenance, for that she ought not to have allowed herself to be seduced!"-American Editor.