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.* Where 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 examination before the kirk-session touching the circumstances of her 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; 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.

PREFATORY REMARKS.

21

While the punishment of incontinence prescribed 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 ceremonies 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 themselves fix the date of their marriage, an opportunity is thus given to avoid the punishment, and repair the consequences, of illicit gratification. Such a degree of laxity respecting so serious 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 subsequent marriage of their parents, renders the actual date of the marriage itself of little consequence.* Marriages contracted in Scotland without the ceremonies of the church are considered as irregular, and the parties usually submit to a rebuke for their conduct, in the face of their respective congregations, which is not however necessary to render the marriage valid.

Burns, whose marriage,

* See Appendix, No. I. Note D.

marriage, it will appear, was irregular, does not seem to have undergone this part of the discipline 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 description 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 produced are as yet far inferior both in reality and

*

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 habitations, 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 improving. Industry and the useful arts came later into Scotland than into England, because the security 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 imminent hazards, and more extensive and destructive spoliation, from external war. cupied in the maintenance of their independ ence against their more powerful neighbours, to this were necessarily sacrificed the arts of peace, and, at certain periods, the flower of their population. And when the union of the crowns produced a security from national wars with England, for the century succeeding, the

Oc

civil

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

civil ward common to both divisions of the island, and the dependence, perhaps the necessary dependence, of the Scottish councils on those of the more powerful kingdom counteracted this advantage. Even the union of the British nations was not, from obvious causes, immediately followed by all the benefits which it was ultimately destined to produce. At length, however, these benefits are distinctly felt, and generally acknowledged. Property 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 advantages resulting from them, contribute towards them with a liberal hand. Hence property, as well as population, is ccumulating 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