had no manufactured exports, and her mechanical productions were rude in the extreme. Domestic trade was carried on by barter. The gold coinage commenced with the accession of the house of Stuart. The exportation of money was prohibited under the penalty of life itself, and about one-tenth of the gross value of the exports and the imports was charged as custom. In navigation they had made but little progress, and in military discipline they were far behind.

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The inequalities existing among nations and individuals are more fancied than real. We have only to study the one great and allcomprehensive plan of Infinite Wisdom, to discover how advantages are balanced, and that the happiness which all are seeking is as wide as the situations of men; and that while no rank is too high for the enjoyment of virtue, there is no rank that can be regarded as too low for it.' In the eloquent words of the eloquent author of the "Theory of Moral Sentiments," "when Providence divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seem to have been left out in the partition. These, too, enjoy their share of all that it produces. In what constitutes the real happiness of human life, they are in no respect inferior to those who would seem so much above them. In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level; and the beggar who suns himself by the side of the highway possesses that security for which kings are fighting."

No very flattering picture this of the state of the country. Yet we mean not to affirm that there was no such thing as either private or public virtue. In the worst ages of the world's history, there are always to be found those who are not only better than their times, but in advance of them-men of noble minds and of pure hearts. The very corruption in the midst of which they live and move ders their virtues still more lovely and still more conspicuous. Like a diamond well set, and which gives its lustre to every surrounding object, or like so many stars in heaven's great concave, which shed down their light and influence on this lower earth, amid the darkness of some long night, they were the lights and glory of their nation, and for the nation's life, and purity, and happiness, they breathed forth their inmost soul. To Wardlaw, bishop of St. Andrews, himself a man of scholarly attainments, Scotland is indebted for her first university in that ancient episcopal city. The studies of the time were confined almost exclusively to scholastic theology and canon law; and though specially adapted to ecclesiastics, they yet I called forth no common degree of mental application, and paved the way for the higher pursuits of iterature and of science. Schools were still wanted for the people; and had the teacher been then abroad with the lessons and the authority of a true pedagogue, the reign of despotism would have been cut short, and justice would have triumphed over oppression, truth over error, and virtue over vice.

It says but little for the character of these times to be told that men were burned for professing a simpler and a purer faith than what the church prescribed. But such is the fact. The principles and the doctrines of Wyckliffe had found their way into Scotland, and there

his followers, whether among the priests or among the people, were first condemned by a clerical council, and then handed over to the secular power to be punished by fine, imprisonment, or death. Liberty of conscience was a thing neither known nor understood. The church has been slow to learn that a man's faith can never be a matter of prescription. The mere act of his putting his hand to a confession, or to certain articles of doctrine, is another and quite a different thing from an enlightened and cordial reception of those doctrines into his inner being. If he has got hold of a principle, then the fires of persecution may burn that principle into him, but can never burn it out of him. It has become part of his own mental and moral nature; and to destroy the principle, you must annihilate his whole being. It is as imperishable as God himself.

CHAPTER XI.

THE TRANSITION PERIOD.

If it be true that it is "the universal radiation of example, reflecting light upon example, which forms the moral splendour of an age, and without some portion of the light of which good laws are powerless, and with which it is almost a matter of little moment, at least to the existing generation, how few the laws may be under which good men are living in peace," then the direct power of example it is all but impossible to estimate. It is not enough to say that it supplements law :-it is better and mightier than all law. "When a citizen is inspired by the genius of virtue, he feels no embarrassment in those cases for which the law has made no provision. His own heart is his legislator. He has there a species of instinct less likely to err than reason itself. A good man divines, as it were, good laws, which, as laws, are yet unexisting. It is not so much in the head, indeed, that the true genius of legislation has its seat, as in the heart; and wise as Solon and Lycurgus were, who can doubt that they had still more virtue than wisdom! When Rome was in peril, what was her resource? She did not form new laws. She ordered the laws to be silent, and gave herself up to the guidance and example of a single good man. The conscience of Camillus was, for a long time, all the legislation of Rome. That Rome, which had scarcely begun to exist, was already almost expiring under the assault of the Gauls. But what is there which a great man cannot do, when he is sure of the courage and of the virtue of his fellow-citizens! Rome, delivered by his arm, had no longer a foe to dread; and with her proud morals, and but a handful of laws, rose from the very brink of the grave to march like a queen to the conquest of the universe. The firmness of Brutus, the good faith of Regulus, the moderation of Cincinnatus, the calm probity of Fabricius, the chastity of the Lucretias and Virginias, the disinterestedness of Paulus Æmilius, the patience of Fabius-these were the best laws of Rome. A virtuous man is a living law-he is more-precepts can only point out to us what tract we should pursue, but examples hurry us along. What a difference there is between a law which speaks but once, and Cato ever acting! This Cato was to Rome its thirteenth table of laws; and without the thirteenth, how defective would the twelve others have been!"

How much, then, is dependant on the example of princes! "In the life of a sovereign there is nothing private. His friendships, his very amusements, are not friendships and amusements only; they are public virtue or public guilt. If he think more of the trappings of

his state than of its duties; if the splendour of some courtly festival be more important to him than the noblest of spectacles which is to be found in the general happiness of a peaceful and virtuous land; if the favourites of his private confidential hours, whom he thus offers to the people as models of the conduct that is worthiest of being honoured, be those who are known to the world only by superior profligacy, and whom every virtuous father of a family would exclude from the dwelling of those for whose innocence he would tremble, if the corrupters were admitted; there may be virtue still in that state, but it is only because there are in it principles of virtue too powerful to be overcome by the vicious authority even of the most powerful. The guilt of the sovereign, however, in such circumstances, is to be estimated, not by the vices which have spread among his people, but by the vices which his own conduct have authorised, and would not be increased, in the amount of its moral delinquency, though all mankind had become what he has said, by his example and his favour, that it is noble to be. If, however, a prince be what a prince should be, he has the comfort of knowing that he is not enjoying only the happiness of virtue, but diffusing it; that since his actions must be lessons, they are lessons of good; and that if, by his example, he exercise a sway more extensive than that of his laws and his arms, it is exercised only for the happiness of the world!" Happy the prince who has such an example to give, and happy the people who are called to follow it!

SECTION 1.-ADMINISTRATION OF JAMES THE FIRST.

With intellectual endowments of a high order and well disciplined, blest with an education at the court of France, of which his talents enabled him to make the best use, adorned with every personal virtue, and devoted to the interests of his people, James ascended the Scottish throne in the thirtieth year of his age, and in the possession of a mature judgment. As a wise prince, he first addressed himself to the removal of those manifold evils which had grown up and distracted the kingdom under the previous reigns and regencies. The more effectually to do this, it was essential to maintain peace with England, and a truce for seven years was concluded between the two nations. Murdac and his two sons, who had so shamefully invaded the royal prerogative, were beheaded at Stirling on the 24th or 25th of May, 1425. The regent's youngest son escaped to Argyllshire, and, with the aid of some highland freebooters, burned the town of Dumbarton, and murdered the king's uncle. He was pursued, but not taken, and having been proclaimed an outlaw, he fled to Ireland, from which he never returned. With these highlanders James had enough to do. The northern districts were in such a state of distraction and confusion that he deemed it necessary to proceed thither with a strong army, to reduce them to order and obedience. He seized upon more than forty of the chiefs, put several of them to death, and required of the others that they should find security for their submission and allegiance. Alaster Macdonald, lord of the isles, was too proud to brook the royal

his recommendation many salutary laws, which were enforced with corresponding authority. Not only did these laws go to confirm the privileges of the church, restrain disorder, promote industry and agriculture, regulate domestic trade and intercourse, suppress vice, and encourage virtue, deepen the current of social happiness, and spread contentment and peace over the land; but they enacted that no private wars should be carried on within the kingdom; that no chief should travel with a greater number of attendants than he could maintain; that all landed proprietors on the north and west coast should furnish and equip a certain number of vessels, in proportion to the extent of their domains; that neither gold nor silver should be exported from the country; that every menial servant employed in husbandry should daily do a certain amount of labour; that all idle dependants should be apprehended, and obliged, under pain of imprisonment, to find employment within forty days of their apprehension; that no mendicants should be allowed to beg without wearing a badge of permission from some of the local authorities; that hospitals for the poor and the sick should be instituted at the expense of government; that hotels or public inns should be erected in the towns and on the highways; and several other measures, all tending to consolidate and render permanent the internal prosperity of the country. These were the doings of parliament. At the same time, James concluded a commercial treaty with the Flemings, from whom the Scots were in the habit of importing almost every article of commerce, by which arrangement many artisans were induced to come over from Flanders and settle in Scotland, and thus new sources of industry and of wealth were opened up to a country proverbially poor and behind in the more useful arts. While, to further the ends of justice, there was now instituted THE COURT OF SESSION, which was composed of a chancellor and a certain number of properly-qualified persons, chosen from the three estates, who were to sit thrice a year. and decide all causes.

SECTION III.-HOSTILITIES RENEWED WITH ENGLAND.

The Scots having renewed their ancient league with France, the dauphin of France having been promised the princess-royal in marriage, together with the decline of England's power in the French continent, tended very much to excite the fears of the English, which could only be allayed by repeated negociations. They were the first to break the truce between the two kingdoms. The borderers were guilty of such repeated and unprovoked incursions as led James to indulge the idea of retaliation. Having summoned the whole force of his kingdom to meet him in arms, he attacked Roxburgh castle, but failed to reduce it. The siege was continued so long that his provisions were exhausted, and he had no alternative but to betake himself to an inglorious retreat.

At this crisis an embassy arrived from France, requiring that the princess Margaret should be sent home to her husband. To prevent this alliance, the English proposed a perpetual truce between the