NATIONAL PROSPERITY. 7 



subject of interesting detail : but as the nature of the present work forbids oui- 

 prosecuting the inquiry farther at present, brief but authentic notices on this and 

 other prominent topics will be found faithfully collated and interspersed in the 

 body of the work. 



During the last century, and in a still more remarkable degree in the present, 

 the people of Scotland have attained that degree of commercial prosperity and 

 success in the application of science to the arts of peace, and that prominent 

 station as an intellectual people, which, by uniting the physical and moral powers, 

 present the best criterion of her national strength and security. 



Societies for the diifusion of religious instruction — for the promotion of liberal 

 science — for the employment of industry in its thousand different forms — for the 

 conservation of patriotic principles — and for the encouragement of agriculture, 

 have been long in full and successful operation, and, in number and importance, 

 are stUl on the increase. The art of husbandry, in particular, has been carried to 

 a degree of perfection to wluch no previous skill had been able to approach, and 

 owes much to the personal example of those noble and patriotic landholders who 

 seem to think, vnth the martial baron of Winterthour — the modern Cincinnatus 

 of Switzerland — that, next to war undertaken in the sacred cause of his country's 

 liberty, there is no pursuit so becoming to a gentleman and a patriot as that of 

 agriculture. 



It is true that, to many districts, it is physically impossible to communicate 

 the advantages resulting from this source of domestic industry, and that the 

 country must there retain the stamp of a sterihty as invincible as the race to 

 which it gives birth — where 



" La nature maratre en ces affreux climats 

 Ne produit au lieu d'or que ilu fer et des soldats — 

 Rien que puisse tenter I'avarice de Rome." 



In this respect, nevertheless, the greatest difficulties have been overcome ; 

 natural obstacles, which for ages had blocked up the way, have been removed ; 

 an intellectual movement, though silent — yet sure and progressive — has wrought 

 the most pleasing results. Instead of the soldier and his sword, the eye and 

 heart of the philanthropic traveller are refreshed with the new and cheering 

 prospect of peaceful hamlets — industrious citizens — luxuriant harvests — crowded 

 harbours — and that air of tranquillity and contentment pervading the whole, to 

 which the industrious exercise of the plough, the loom, and the spade, is the best 

 and surest introduction. 



There is one conspicuous trait in the character of the Scotch which, in very recent 

 times, has strengthened and confirmed their claim to the high moral distinction 



