458 KAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 



properties, wherever they exist, create almost necessarily 

 human nature being what it is a species of despotism more 

 oppressive than even that of great unrepresentative govern- 

 ments. It used to be remarked on the Continent, that there 

 was always less liberty in petty principalities, where the eye 

 of the ruler was ever on his subjects, than under the abso- 

 lute monarchies.* And in a country such as ours, the ac- 

 cumulation of landed property in the hands of comparatively 

 a few individuals has the effect often of bringing the territo- 

 rial privileges of the great landowner into a state of antago- 

 nism with the civil and religious rights of the people, that 

 cannot be other than perilous to the landowner himself. In 

 a district divided, like Orkney, among many owners, a whole 

 country-side could not be shut up against its people by some 

 ungenerous or intolerant proprietor, greatly at his own risk 

 and to his own hurt, as in the case of Glen Tilt or the 

 Grampians ; nor, when met for purposes of public worship, 



* There is a very admirable remark to this effect in the "Travelling 

 Memorandums" of the late Lord Gardenstone, which, as the work has been 

 long out of print, and is now scarce, may be new to many of my readers : 

 " It is certain, and demonstrated by the experience of ages and nations," 

 says hisLordship, in referring to the old principalities of France, "that the 

 government of petty princes is less favourable to the security and interests 

 of society than the government of monarchs, who possess great and exten- 

 sive territories. The race of great monarchs cannot possibly preserve a 

 safe and undisturbed state of government, without many delegations of 

 power and office to men of approved abilities and practical knowledge, who 

 are subject to complaint during their administration, and responsible when 

 it is at an end ; or yet without an established system of laws and regula- 

 tions ; so that no inconsiderable degree of security and liberty to the sub- 

 ject is almost inseparable from, and essential to, the subsistence and dura- 

 tion of a great monarchy. But it is easy for petty princes to practise an 

 arbitrary and irregular exercise of power, by which their people are re- 

 duced to a condition of miserable slavery. Indeed, very few of them, in 

 the course of ages, are capable of conceiving any other means of maintain- 

 iug the ostentatious state, the luxurious and indolent pride, which they 

 mistake for greatness. I heartily wish that this observation and censure 

 may not, in some instances, be applicable to great landed proprietors in 

 some parts of Britain." " Travelling Memorandums," vol. i. p. 123. 1792. 



