land began to grow and flourish under a polity which contained the germ of all her present institutions, and which was kept from degenerating into despotism, by the awe in which the governors stood of the spirit and strength of the governed ;-if on the accession of the Tudor line, the seeds of improvement were more thickly and more widely sown, till civilisation, and science, and art-commerce, and industry, and wealth-liberty, and religion, and social happiness, all took on new forms of life and force;-if at the death of Elizabeth, as the last member of the house of Tudor, that civilisation, mental culture, and protestant Christianity were such as promised to make England the first nation in the world, it is equally certain that when James took leave of Scotland for the throne of England, our country exhibited a very much improved type of intellectual and social life. Just as in physical existence, the growth, and health, and perfection, of the body, are all dependent on the power of assimilation; in other words, just as each part of the organic structure can take up and assimilate to itself its own appropriate element, can we have a perfect organism, so the progress and improvement of the intellectual or spiritual nature of man, are dependent on the right use of those provisions and advantages which are placed within his reach. "The bodily organs of the human frame bear such a correspondence with the properties of the soul, as to give him the means, when they are properly used, of enlarging his powers, and of becoming wiser and more skilful from hour to hour, as long as his life permits; and not only is this the case, but tribes and nations of men assemble together for the pur.. pose of mutual protection and improvement, and if circumstances are favourable, go on by gradual steps from being a wild horde of naked barbarians, till they become a powerful and civilised people."

More than a century had rolled away, since the art of printing had been introduced into Scotland. From that moment, knowledge became the common property of the people. Though speeech must ever be regarded as a divine gift, its sounds are fleeting, perishable things. Man might have given utterance to the purest and most ennobling thoughts, but without some visible sign-some written form-they must have quickly perished from the human memory. We say not that either intellect or genius was dependent on the invention of letters. On the contrary, it can be proved to demonstration, that some of the noblest productions of the human intellect date farther back than the current use of letters. And at "this hour, genius throws out fitful flashes among uncultivated tribes, who have no visible signs to perpetuate the glories: of eloquence or of song. But without the introduction of such signs, it is obvious that the fruits of genius can put on no stable form their existence must be precarious-their effects feeble and confined. Literature thus stands inseparably connected with the art of writing. Without a written language, how poor would have been the domain of thought! IIow different the condition and, prospects of our common humanity! Without letters, no people can attain to any high degree of civilisation and refinement. Intellect, however free and vital in its breathings and utterances, can never be

embodied or long preserved. It is truly astonishing how by the various disposition and arrangement of five-and-twenty or thirty letters, between which and the thoughts of the mind, there is no conceivable correspondence, we can clothe all our ideas-disclose to others the secrets of a nature which they could never otherwise penetrate—let them into the very depth and arcana of our inmost being ! Nay more; we can so embody these thoughts and secrets, as to give them perpetuity, and pass them down to the most distant ages of time. These cabalistic characters could not be a mere human invention, nor yet the gradual growth and discovery of a progressive and uplifting civilisation. That august Being who by successive acts of unlimited power, brought into existence a perfect world, by one final and omnipotent act, made a perfect man. "He did not merely create him in the full possession of his bodily organs and mental powers, and then leave him to shift for himself in the best manner he could. He did not thrust him out into the world like a large overgrown infant-a great child, with sensible organs and animal appetites, that could fit him only for a brutal life. He did more. He did what was absolutely necessary, in the case of a being who had none to instruct him. He taught him how to use his powers-communicated knowledge to him-conversed with him-made a help-meet for him-placed him under a mild law, and gave him a conditional promise of continued immortality." The knowledge which he thus freely received, he freely communicated. An offspring grew up around him, and into their minds he poured the light of truthwhether that truth had reference to physics or to morals-to science or to religion. On a scale of gradual, social, and civil improvement, did the race continue to advance, till the legation of Moses. But to what extent knowledge obtained anterior to the deluge, we have no means of informing ourselves. In that grand catastrophe the whole treasure was lost, except the few elements which were preserved in the ark, and from which, as so many imperishable seeds, the tree of knowledge was again to grow, and expand, and over-shadow the race. As the earth became peopled, knowledge extended. possession of one nation became the common property of the world. Christianity was revealed as the new life-giving power for humanity. It broke down the wall of partition which kept the nations at a distance from each other, and pointed forward to the brotherhood of man. A grand impulse was given to the activity of mind, and civilisation and science continued their progress till the middle ages, when science and literature were locked up in cloisters and in universities, and the key of knowledge denied to the people. The reformation having thrown back their iron bars and frowning doors, and brought their hidden and accumulated treasures into the light of day, and placed them within the reach of all ranks and classes, a vital power was inwrought into the soul of man, and he entered the field of speculation with renovated capacity and invincible determination. The discovery of the art of printing, and the free use of the press, came to the aid of newly-awakened genius. Men appeared of rich and rare endowments-men whose colossal intellect and almost superhuman powers, make us proud of our common humanity-men

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whose strong texture of mind, and the force of whose genius, challenged the admiration of the whole civilised world-men whose spirit had been touched and kindled by divine fire, and the grasp and the grandeur of whose intellect could not be measured by its proudest achievement-men whose philosophy and discoveries began to enrich the world, and whose profounder writings opened a new era in the science of mind-men who were the master-spirits of their age, and who gave to knowledge its renewed acceleration, and to society its mighty impulse. Those men not only lent their aid to science and to literature, but into both breathed a life and an energy which must carry them forward with positive rapidity and increase till the end of time. Both England and Scotland have reached their proud elevation, through the mysterious and life-giving power of letters.

With the introduction of the press, and the circulation of books in the various departments of letters, came the establishment of schools and the education of the people. Up to the time of James, the Scottish borders had been inhabited by lawless depredators, who lived by rapine and by plunder. "The highlands were possessed by a different race, of a strange language, but equally unacquainted with the restraints of government, or the manners of civilised life, their kindness was limited to their clan, and their loyalty to their chief; and the gloomy indolence of the mountains was only interrupted by conflicts among the ferocious chieftains, or plundering incursions on their wealthier neighbours. The islands were the haunts of, perhaps, more unreclaimed savages than either, whose piracies infested the western coasts, and who were often troublesome, but seldom advantageous to the Scottish crown. The lowlands, harassed by the licentiousness which a weak government, and the partial administration of justice, never fail to produce, were, besides, distracted by religious dissension, which the mischievous, intermeddling policy of their polemical king increased and prolonged." Yet it must be confessed that James manifested no common solicitude in seeking to control the feudal chiefs, and to produce the same tranquillity in those portions of his kingdom, as the introduction of the arts of peace had insured in the lowlands. He endeavoured to loosen the attachment of the turbulent and ferocious mountaineers to military pursuits, to direct their bold and enterprising spirit to habits of industry, to open fields for commercial and mechanical skill, and to provide more largely and more effectually for their social improvement and moral elevation, His labours were all but in vain. It required the severest measures to bring the border-territories, which now formed the centre of the kingdom, into anything even approaching to subordination. And though the course of justice did find a channel in which to flow, so lingering was its course, even among men of rank and power, that it was more than a century before the country took on the appearance and the character of a civilised region, or before the people gave up their predatory warfare for the pursuits of a peaceful industry. Nor could much be done with the highlands and western isles. Each clan had its chief, and chief contended with chief, and clan fought with clan, as their ancestors had done for centuries before. They

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contemned the arts of peace. Though placed between two civilised and reconciled countries, military adventure was their delight. It was by slow degrees that the spirit of improvement extended to these mountain regions. In the lowlands, the establishment of parochial schools conferred upon the people a national boon. Though these schools date their existence some twelve or thirteen years after James's accession to the throne of England, and did not receive the sanction of parliament till 1633, yet when his majesty visited Scotland in 1617, so common was the knowledge of Latin, that several congratulatory poems and addresses were presented to him, composed in that language, by merchants and tradesmen of the fair city of Perth. The social and moral influence of this national institution for the education of the people was most salutary. Not only did it prove favourable to the interests of industry, and of good government, but it became daily more evident that on the diffusion of knowledge, more than on any other cause, depend the happiness and prosperity, the elevation and stability, the perpetuity and the glory of nations. Reverence for authority, obedience to law, public faith, social virtue, and private excellence, all followed in the steps of the schoolmaster. The manners of the people became refined, and the intercourse of life was heightened by the urbanities and the courtesies of more advanced civilisation.

Nor was Scotland destitute of men of higher endowments and of wider intelligence. Buchanan, the preceptor of his majesty, united a transcendent genius to extensive and elegant learning. There were linguists and philologists of the first class-celebrated civilians and scholars, and professors of law-theologians, and polemics, and poets-writers on politics and government, and the doctrines of toleration. To the reformers belong the merit of having revived the study of Greek literature, and of having introduced the study of the Hebrew and other cognate languages into the schools and universities of their native land. It may be questioned whether, in the republic of letters, there could be found more elegant or accomplished scholars than what Scotland produced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We mean not to say that she had yet given birth to any such men of genius as Shakspere, or Milton, or Bacon, or Newton. The union of her crown with that of England, withdrew the Scots from that higher circle of mental culture and refined taste, which is found to surround the prince and his nobles, and to render the court the centre of elegance and splendour. While the English were busy in the cultivation and improvement of their own language, the Scots, in the absence of the court, had no standard of speech, and disdaining to refine their own tongue and conform it to the English standard, their compositions failed to excite any attention, or were condemned as the productions of a semi-barbarous age. A serious obstacle to the cultivation and improvement of a more refined literature, was interposed by those ecclesiastical disputes which divided the church and distracted the people. But what the Scottish writers lacked in taste and beauty, was more than made up in the depth of their erudition, the extent of their learning, and in the manly vigour of their style.

SECTION II. THE RESULTS OF MORAL INFLUENCE.

It is only where a pure and spiritual Christianity prevails, and where this Christianity is left unfettered and free-it is only where the principles of the reformation have gained the ascendancy, and are faithfully maintained-it is only where the right of private judgment is asserted and exercised, and no one is allowed to interfere with the functions and prerogatives of conscience, that society presents a healthful and a happy aspect. The genius of Christianity is most favourable to freedom and happiness. The Divine Founder of our faith came into the world "proclaiming liberty to the captive;" and who can deny that in proportion to the power and prevalence of Christianity in any land, have the principles of civil government been relaxed and modified-the moral tastes refined and elevated-the relations of life strengthened and compacted, and the cup of social good filled and sweetened? If we look into those countries even called Christian, whose religion partakes more of the superstitious than of the spiritual, and whose mind is not left wholly free in this sacred province, we discover that the situation of the people is rather to be deplored than envied. The governments under which they live are austere, despotic, and tyrannical; the principles of the national creed are lax, indefinite, and open a flood-gate to all manner of profligacy and vice; while the social condition of the people is most fitly repre.. sented by penury, discomfort, and wretchedness. But for the genius of a pure Christianity, and mind would still have been held in the thraldom and the degradation of the middle ages; the social system would not yet have been purified and adjusted ;-the moral condition of the people would still have been corrupt and corrupting. Christianity works the most wondrous changes in the habits and tastes, in the pursuits and enjoyments of all classes. In the humblest walks of life, it acts with more than magic power. It goes down to the lowest depths of human nature, and purifies the great fountain of thought and feeling. It emancipates the spirit from the gross and the sensual, awakens intellect, and introduces man into the path of virtue and of glory.

The art of printing multiplied the copies of the Christian Book to such an extent, as to bring it within the reach of hundreds and thousands, to whom hitherto it had been sealed and unknown, or who, from the expense connected with transcription, could not possess themselves of a copy. The circulation of the Bible was fatal to the reign of despotism, and to the power of priestcraft. Men not only read, but thought; and thought quickened into action. The people were resolved to free themselves from superstition and from tyranny. In this they were seconded by the preachers of the reformed faith. The lessons of the pulpit fell upon the ear with all the force of inspiration. Though Knox had gone down to his last resting-place, and his voice was no longer heard in the manly utterances of eternal truth, his spirit survived. His mantle fell upon those whom he left behind him. They were men faithful to God, and devoted to their country. All classes became imbued with their spirit-their