G SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



Scotch, wlio enjoyed an exclusive, and almost uninterrupted, intercourse of many 

 centuries witli that court and country, had opportunities peculiarly favourable 

 for engrafting upon the -ivild stock of their own land the germs of polished 

 life ; and of introducing among their countrymen that passion for literary distinc- 

 tion, thirst for science, and patronage of the fine arts, which — although occasion- 

 ally chilled and suspended, have descended to our own times with undiminished 

 ardour — throvni a lustre over the whole circle of the belles-lettres, and, leaving 

 none untouched, have adorned every department of human science. 



The great privileges enjoyed by the Scotch in France served, also, as a favoui-- 

 able introduction to the more rich and classic provinces of Italy, whence many of 

 the nobility, educated at Pavia and Bologna, and subsequently finished in all the 

 accomplishments of the French court, returned home with their minds expanded 

 by travel, and enriched by daily intercourse with the most enhghtened and refined 

 men of their day. 



But as the great source of refinement is riches — and as a nation cannot aboimd 

 in luxuries till it has secured the necessaries of life, the disadvantage which 

 retarded Scotland in her progress towards refinement was — compared wdth her 

 southern rival — her poverty, and the imperious and constant necessity of cul- 

 tivating those arts which promised secmity to her as a kingdom, rather than 

 those which only promised the diffusion of knowledge and the riches of philosophy. 

 But as the progress of civilization must be always estimated by the means 

 enjoyed, and the privations encoimtered, by that nation to which it is offered ; 

 it is delightful to record its gradually triumphant progress in Scotland, under 

 circumstances the most adverse to its indulgence, and to observe that wliile her 

 right hand was devoted to war, her left was extended for the protection of 

 science, and the intellectual improvement of her subjects. 



During the fourteenth century, although glaringly deficient in the usual means 

 of legal administration — in established com'ts of justice, and other points and 

 forms of national judicature, — in all of which the benefit of English example 

 was unimproved, — still the love of letters acquired a firmer root, and — in spite of 

 much apparent contradiction, in the want of native schools and universities — 

 extended its ramifications in comparative silence, till Barbour, Wintoun, and 

 Thomas of Ercildoun, came forth under a spell of inspiration which placed 

 them in advance of all their contemporaries, and gave to Scotland that superiority 

 ill literature which Enghuid had acquired in political strength. 



To trace the gradual development of humanizing principles — the patronage 

 subsequently bestowed upon the arts — and the encouragement given to learned 

 men, from the period in question down to that of the Union — would furnish a 



