102 SCOTLAND AT THE MIDDLE OF LAST CENTURY. PART VII 



horse to fetch a load of " divot " from (lladsmuir, or 

 of coal from the nearest colliery, only some four miles 

 distant. By the year 1763 this post-road must have 

 been made practicable for wheeled vehicles ; for in that 

 year the one stage-coach, which for a time formed the 

 sole communication of the kind between London and all 

 Scotland, began to run; and John Rennie, when a bov, 

 was familiar with the sight of the uncouth vehicle lum- 

 bering along the road past his door. It " set out " from 

 Edinburgh only once a month, the journey to London 

 occupying from twelve to eighteen days, according to 

 the state of the roads. 



Such, however, had not always been the miserable 

 condition of Scotland. The tine old bridges which exist- 

 in different parts of the country alone serve to show that 

 at some early period a degree of civilization and pros- 

 perity had prevailed, from which it had gradually fallen . 

 Professor limes has clearly pointed this out in a recent 

 work : l " When we consider," he says, " the long and 

 united efforts required in the early state of the arts for 

 throwing a bridge over any considerable river, the early 

 occurrence of bridges may well be admitted as one of 

 the best tests of civilization and national prosperity." 

 As in England itself, the original reclamation of lands, 

 the improvement of agriculture, the making of roads, 

 and the building of bridges throughout the Lowlands of 

 Scotland, were for the most part due to the old church- 

 men ; and when their ecclesiastical organization was 

 destroyed the country again relapsed into the state from 

 which they had raised it, and it lay in ruins almost until 

 our own day, when it has again been rescued from bar- 

 renness, even more effectually than before, by the com- 

 bined influences of education and industry. 



The same " Brothers of the Bridge," who erected so 

 many fine old bridges across the rivers of England, were 



Cosmo Tnnes's ' Sketches of Early Scottish History.' 1861. 



