PROGRESS OF REFINEMENT. O 



Other history can supply — all illustrative of a period fertile above every other ui 

 scenes of daring enterprise, romantic incidents, reckless bravery, and when 

 historical facts, monkish legends, and superstitious observances, were singularly 

 and grotesquely blended. 



In the arts of peace, and in the cultivation of every means fonned to advance 

 the true interests of man, Scotland is entitled to universal gratitude. The union 

 of mental improvement with manual industry ; of frugal habits with a high tone 

 of moral conduct ; of correct principles regulating the common business of life ; 

 of ambition in the acquirement, and discretion in the employment, of her 

 resources ; of probity in private intercourse, with a hearty cooperation towards 

 the public weal ; and, above all— as influencing all— a profound reverence for the 

 duties of religion, by which the fiercer passions are held in salutary control, and 

 social order and sobriety consolidated— these are severally, not the imputed but, 

 the constituent principles of the native character— such as, at various times, 

 and in every country in Europe, have raised the moral Scot to situations of the 

 highest trust and distinction. 



From the intimate connexion which, from the first revival of literature and the 

 fine arts, subsisted between Scotland and France, an early taste for science and 

 the arts of civiUzed life was introduced, and so successfully cultivated by the 

 former, that many of the first universities in Europe had their philosophical 

 chairs filled by learned Scotchmen;* while in every part of the continent— but 

 more particularly in Germany, monasteries were founded, and placed under the 

 guardianship of learned missionaries from the same nation. These and numerous 

 other facts, of easy reference, go far to invaUdate an assertion, on the part of a 

 great authority, that all the civilization introduced into Scotland is owing to her 

 trade and intercourse with England, 



The privileges bestowed upon Scotch residents in France were numerous and 

 flattering; they were entrusted with the highest offices, civil, military, and 

 ecclesiastical— were admitted to the full enjoyment of all rights and exemptions 

 claimed by native citizens ; and from them the monarchs of those days selected 

 their body-guard, as the highest and most convincing testimony of their confi- 

 dence. If the southern division of Great Britain derived, as it certainly did, 

 a taste for refinement and literature from the French, it is undisputable that the 



• "Charlemagne, whose preceptor was Johannes Scotiis, or Albinus, was so anxious to illustrate his 

 reign by combining the stu'ly of the arts with the practice of arms, that he invited learned men from 

 Scotland," says Buchanan, " to teach philosophy in Greek and Latin at Paris. The first league between 

 Scotland and France was sigued by this monarch in 790, and afterwards by Achaius at Inverlochy, and 

 from this remote period down to the Union the alliance continued." — See " Remarks" by M'NicoL. 



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