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made any very striking impression on me-but indeed this might well be the case, without the least reflection on the talents of those present. This gentleman's mode of talking is just as different as possible from his friend's-it is quietly, simply, unaffectedly sensible, and that is all one thinks of it at first-but by degrees he says things, which although at the moment he utters them, they do not produce any very startling effect, have the power to keep one musing on them for a long time after he stops-so that, even if one were not told who he is, I believe one would have no difficulty in discovering him to be a great man. The gravity of his years-the sweet unassuming gentleness of his behaviour-and the calm way in which he gave utterance to thoughts, about which almost any other person would have made so much bustle— every thing about the appearance and manners of this serene and venerable old man has left a feeling of quiet, respectful, and affectionate admiration upon my mind. I brought him into town in the shandrydan, and he has asked me to dine with him in the beginning of next week. I mean before the time, to go and hear him deliver one of his lectures, and shall tell you what I think of it-although, considering the subject of which he treats, you may perhaps feel no great anxiety to hear my opinion.

I declare the wine here is superb. I think some of J's Château-Margout beats the lot you bought at Colonel Johnes's all to nothing-don't take this in dudgeon.

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I AM rather surprised that you should already begin to call upon me for disquisition, when you may well suppose I

have still so many interesting descriptions to give you. I have now seen, not one or two, but a great number of those eminent persons who confer so much honour upon the present condition of Scotland, and of whom you yourself have so often talked to me in terms of ardent curiosity. I assure you, but, indeed, why should I waste words to do so, that the extraordinary talents of these men are as far as possible from losing by a close inspection of their manners. The tone of that society, which they have necessarily had so great a share in forming, is as free as possible from the influence of that spirit of jealousy and constraint which I have observed operating in some other cities, in such a way as to prevent men of genius from doing justice to themselves, elsewhere than in their writings. Hereafter, indeed, I shall have occasion to say something of the spirit of party in Scotland, and to show with what destructive violence it attacks the very essence of cordial communion among some of the less considerable classes of society. Nay, I fear, from what I already see, that I shall find some little occasion to lament the insidious and half unsuspected influences of the same spirit among those who should be more above its working. But in the social intercourse of most of the men of literary eminence whom I have as yet seen, the absence of all feeling of party appears to be quite as entire as that of some other, and yet more offensive feelings which are elsewhere sufficiently manifest in their effects; and the principles, as well as the reputation of the one of such men, appear to act in no other way upon the other, than as gentle stimulants of his intellect, and of his courtesy. My friend W. as I have already whispered, not only forms, but glories in forming, an exception to this sort of behaviour. He utterly hates a Whig and a Calvinist, and he has no scruple about saying as much upon every occasion. He abominates the style of complaisant smoothness, with which some, who entertain many of his own opinions, are accustomed to treat those whom he calls by no better name than the Adversaries; and complains, indeed, with an air of

gravity, which I should not have expected in any man of his understanding, that by this species of conduct, the Great Cause itself, (by which he means the cause of true religion and true patriotism, as united and inseparable,) has sustained, is sustaining, and is likely to sustain injuries of a more dangerous character than its unassisted enemies alone could have any power of inflicting. He has a two-fold argument on this head. "In the first place," says he, "the utterly ignorant and uninformed, who must constitute the great majority of every nation, and the half ignorant and conceited, who constitute an infinitely larger proportion of the Scotch than of any other nation under heaven-and who, wherever they may be found, are a far more despicable, though no doubt, a more dangerous class than that upon which they think themselves entitled to look down-all these people, 'thick as the leaves in Vallambrosa,' are, in spite of themselves, mightily influenced in all things by the example of the few men of true genius and learning their country does contain. They see the external kindness with which these men treat the persons of their enemies, and it is no wonder that they care not to make nice distinctions between persons and principles for themselves. In the second place, says he, the good cavalier himself cannot keep company with roundheads-no, nor the good son of the true church cannot consort in familiarity with the relics of the cold-blooded covenanters on the one hand, or with those of the equally coldblooded sceptic and infidel tribe on the other, without losing somewhat of the original purity of his affectionate faith. For my part, he concludes, I will do no harm to others or to myself, by such rash and unworthy obsequiences." The plain English of all which is, perhaps, nothing more than that my good friend is too great a bigot to be capable of feeling much happiness in the presence of men who differ from him on points which he considers as of so much importance, and that he is willing, in avoiding their company, to cover his true motives from his acquaintance, in part it may be from

himself, by the assumption of others, to which, in truth, he has little legitimate pretensions.

Be all this as it may, Wis, without doubt, the keenest Tory in Scotland; indeed, I believe I should not go far from the truth, should I say, that his Toryism both far more smells of the old cavalier school, and is far more keen and intolerant, than that of any man of superior attainments, I ever met with on either side of the Tweed. A Scotsman of genuine talents, who sincerely entertains such opinions, may perhaps claim no inconsiderable indulgence, although the present condition of his country should affect him with feelings of aversion, almost of loathing, toward politicians of another kind, such as would be altogether unpardonable in an English Tory. In our part of the island, thank God, the pedigree of right thoughts has at no period been interrupted; and never, I firmly believe, did the venerable tree present a more imposing spectacle of bloom and vigour than at the present. In literature, as in every other walk of exertion and department of life, the Tories have, at least, their equal share of power and of honour. In the church, their principles are maintained by a mighty majority of a clergy, whom even their enemies will acknowledge to be the most learned in the world, and who, whatever may be their comparative deficiencies in some other respects, are certainly far more intimately connected with the thoughts and feelings of the most important classes of society, than any clerical body in Europe ever was; and therefore, it may be presumed, more likely to exert a continued and effectual influence upon the public mind of their country. In the law, where the encouragement for talent alone is such, that no man of high talents can be suspected of easily sacrificing his judgment for the hopes of favour, the superiority is almost as apparent as in the church, and Shepherd stands as much alone among the younger, as our excellent Chancellor does among the elder part of the profession. In literature, they have no lack of splendid names. They have an equal proportion of those who carry on the immediate and more noisy conflict; and a far over-balancing array

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of such as are likely to be remembered hereafter for the stable and enduring triumphs of their genius. They have Canning and Frere among the wits-they have Wordsworth and Coleridge in poetry-and they have the unwearied and inexhaustible Southey in every thing. They have no reason either to be ashamed of their front, or apprehensive of their success; and therefore they can have no excuse for carrying farther than is absolutely necessary, the measure of their hostility toward those who do not muster beneath their banner. I before suspected in part, and I now have seen enough thoroughly to convince me, that in each and all of these points, this quarter of the island presents unhappily a contrast as striking as possible to the condition of our own.

I shall not at present enter upon any thing like a review of the past history of political feeling in Scotland, because I expect ere long to find myself better enabled than I now am to attempt something of this kind; and, at the same time, by laying before you the results of my inquiries into the nature both of the religion and the education of Scotland, to afford you somewhat of a key to its interpretation. In the meantime, however, nothing can be more certain than the superiority of the Whigs in the Scottish literature of the present dây; nor is their superiority a whit less decisive in the law, the only profession which, in Scotland, exerts any great or general authority over the opinions of the higher classes of society. As for the church, of which I propose to give you a full account hereafter, and of which, in regard to its influence among the mass of the people, I am inclined to entertain a very high respect-the truth is, the clergy of Scotland are, at the present day, possessed of comparatively little power over the opinions of the best educated classes of their countrymen. One very efficient cause of this want of influence is, without doubt, the insignificant part they have of late taken in general literature; their neglect, in other words, their strange and unprecedented neglect of an engine, which, among a people whose habits at all resemble those of the present Scots, must ever be, of all others, the most extensive in

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