sixteen were sent off to London, and took their seats in the House of Lords, of which they formed a small and miserable fraction. On every subject, however important to their own country, they were easily outvoted; their manners, their gesticulations, and particularly their comical mode of pronouncing English, were openly ridiculed;100 and the chiefs of this old and powerful aristocracy found themselves, to their utter amazement, looked on as men of no account, and they were often obliged to fawn and cringe at the levee of the minister, in order to procure a place for some needy dependent. Their friends and relations applied to them for offices, and generally applied in vain. Indeed, the Scotch nobles, being very poor, wanted for themselves more than the English go

land was to retrench her nobility." De Foe's History of the Union, p. 495. Compare p. 471: "The nobility being thereby, as it were, degraded of their characters." In 1710, a Scotchman writes in his journal: “It was one of the melancholyest sights to any that have any sense of our antient Nobility, to see them going throu for votes, and making partys, and giving their votes to others who once had their oun vote; and I suspect many of them reu the bargain they made, in giving their oun pouer away." Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. p. 308.

100 The Scotch, consequently, became so eager to do away with this source of mirth, that even as late as the year 1761, when the notorious lecturer, Sheridan, visited Edinburgh, "such was the rage for speaking with an English accent, that more than three hundred gentlemen, among whom were the most eminent in the country for rank and learning, attended him." Ritchie's Life of Hume, London, 1807, p. 94. It was, however, during about twenty years immediately after the Union, that the Scotch members of Parliament, both Lords and Commons, were most jeered at in London, and were treated with marked disrespect, socially and politically. Not only were they mocked and lampooned, but they were also made tools of. In September 1711, Wodrow writes (Analecta, vol. i. p. 348, 4to, 1842): “In the beginning of this (month), I hear a generall dissatisfaction our Nobility, that wer at last Parliament, have at their treatment at London. They complean they are only made use of as tools among the English, and cast by when their party designes are over." The next year (1712), the Scotch members of the House of Commons met together, and expressed their "high resentment of the uncivil, haughty treatment they mett with from the English." The Lockhart Papers, London, 1817, 4to, vol. i. p. 417. See, further, Burton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 27. "Without descending to rudeness, the polished contemporaries of Wharton and St. John could madden the sensitive and haughty Scots by light shafts of raillery, about their pronunciation or knowledge of parliamentary etiquette." Some curious observations upon the way in which the Scotch pronounced English, late in the seventeenth century, will be found in Morer's Short Account of Scotland, London, 1702, pp. 13, 14. The author of this book was chaplain to a Scotch regiment.

vernment was inclined to give, and, in the eagerness of their clamour, they lost both dignity and reputation.101 They were exposed to mortifying rebuffs, and their true position being soon known, weakened their influence at home, among a people already prepared to throw off their authority. To this, however, they were comparatively indifferent, as they looked for future fortune, not to Scotland, but to England. London became the centre of their intrigues and their hopes.102 Those who had no

101 Among many illustrations with which contemporary memoirs abound, the following is by no means the worst. Burnet, as a Scotchman, thinks proper to say that those of his countrymen who were sent to parliament, 66 were persons of such distinction, that they very well deserved" the respect and esteem with which they were treated. To which, Lord Dartmouth adds: "and were very importunate to have their deserts rewarded. A Scotch earl pressed Lord Godolphin extremely for a place. He said there was none vacant. The other said, his lordship could soon make one so, if he pleased. Lord Godolphin asked him, if he expected to have any body killed to make room? He said, No; but Lord Dartmouth commonly voted against the court, and every body wondered that he had not been turned out before now. Lord Godolphin told him, he hoped his lordship did not expect that he should be the person to propose it; and advised him never to mention it any more, for fear the queen should come to hear of it; for if she did, his lordship would run great risk never to have a place as long as she lived. But he could not forbear telling every where, how ill the lord treasurer had used him." Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. v. p. 349, Oxford, 1823. Compare the account, in 1710, in Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. p. 293. "Argyle is both picked (i.e. piqued) at Marlburrou, and his brother Yla, for refuising him a regiment; and Godolphin should have said to the Queen that my Lord Yla was not to be trusted with a regiment! The Earl of Marr was one of the greatest cronnies Godolphine had, till the matter of his pension, after the Secretary office was taken from him, came about. Godolphine caused draw it during pleasure; Marr expected it during life, which the Treasurer would not yield to, and therefore they brake." The history of the time is full of these wretched squabbles, which show what the Scotch nobles were made of. Indeed, their rapacity was so shameless, that, in 1711, several of them refused to perform their legislative duties in London, unless they received some offices which they expected. "About the midle of this moneth, I hear ther was a meeting of severall of our Scots Peers, at the Viscount of Kilsyth's, where they concerted not to goe up to this parliament till peremptorly writ for; and (also) some assurance be given of the places they were made to hope for last session and have missed." Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. p. 365. In 1712, the same Scotchman writes (Analecta, vol. ii. p. 8): "Our Scots Peers' secession from the House of Peers makes much noise; but they doe not hold by it. They somtimes come and somtimes goe, and they render themselves base in the eyes of the English." See also a letter "concerning the Scots Peerage," in Somers Tracts, vol. xii. p. 607, edit. Scott, London, 1814, 4to. 102 A Scotch writer, twenty years after the Union, says: Most of our gentlemen and people of quality, who have the best estates in our country, VOL. II. X

seat in the House of Lords, longed to have one, and it was notorious, that the darling object of nearly every Scotch noble was to be made an English peer. 103 The scene of their ambition being shifted, they were gradually weaned from their old associations. Directly this was apparent, the foundation of their power was gone. From that moment, their real nationality vanished. It became evident that their patriotism was but a selfish passion. They ceased to love a country which could give them nothing, and, as a natural consequence, their country

ceased to love them.

Thus it was that this great tie was severed. In this, as in all similar movements, there were, of course, exceptions. Some of the nobles were disinterested, and some of their dependents were faithful. But, looking at the Lowlands as a whole, there can be no doubt that, before the middle of the eighteenth century, that bond of affection was gone, which, in former times, made tens of thousands of Scotchmen ready to follow their superiors

live for the most part at London." Reasons for Improving the Fisheries and Linen Manufacture of Scotland, London, 1727, p. 22. I do not know who wrote this curious little treatise; but the author was evidently a native of Scotland. See p. 25. I have, however, still earlier evidence to adduce. A letter from Wodrow, dated 9th of August 1725, complains of "the general sending our youth of quality to England;" and a letter to him, in 1716, describes the Anglicizing process going on among the Scotch aristocracy, only nine years after the Union. "Most of our Lords and others here do so much depend on the English for their posts, and seeking somewhat or other, that their mouths are almost quite stopped; and really most of them go into the English way in all things." Wodrow's Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 196, vol. iii. p. 224. The Earl of Mar lost popularity in Scotland, on account of the court he paid to Lord Godolphin; for, he "appears to have passed much more time in intrigues in Loudon than among the gardens of Alloa." Thomson's Memoirs of the Jacobites, vol. i. p. 36. Even Earl Ilay, in his anxiety to advance himself at the English court, " used to regret his being a Scots peer, and to wish earnestly he was a commoner." Letters of Lord Grange, in The Miscellany of the Spalding Club, vol. iii. p. 39, Aberdeen, 4to, 1846.

103 Indeed, their expectation ran so high, as to induce a hope, not only that those Commissioners of the Union who were Scotch peers should be made English ones, but that "the whole nobility of Scotland might in time be admitted." Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 346. Compare The Lockhart Papers, vol. i. pp. 298, 343: "the Scots Peerage, many of whom had been bubled with the hopes of being themselves created British Peers." Also The Gordon Letters, in The Miscellany of the Spalding Club, vol. iii. pp. 227, 228.

in any cause, and to sacrifice their lives at a nod. That spirit, which was once deemed ardent and generous, but which a deeper analysis shows to be mean and servile, was now almost extinct, except among the barbarous Highlanders, whose ignorance of affairs long prevented them from being influenced by the stream of events. That the proximate cause of this change was the Union, will probably be denied by no one who has minutely studied the history of the period. And that the change was beneficial, can only be questioned by those sentimental dreamers, with whom life is a matter rather of feeling than of judgment, and who, despising real and tangible interests, reproach their own age with its material prosperity, and with its love of luxury, as if they were the result of low and sordid desires unknown to the loftier temper of bygone days. To visionaries of this sort, it may well appear that the barbarous and ignorant noble, surrounded by a host of devoted retainers, and living with rude simplicity in his own dull and wretched castle, forms a beautiful picture of those unmercenary and uncalculating times, when men, instead of seeking for knowledge, or for wealth, or for comfort, were content with the frugal innocence of their fathers, and when, protection being accorded by one class, and gratitude felt by the other, the subordination of society was maintained, and its different parts were knit together by sympathy, and by the force of common emotions, instead of, as now, by the coarse maxims of a vulgar and selfish utility.

Those, however, whose knowledge gives them some acquaintance with the real course of human affairs, will see that in Scotland, as in all civilized countries, the decline of aristocratic power forms an essential part of the general progress. It must, therefore, be esteemed a fortunate circumstance, that, among the Scotch, where that power had long been enormous, it was weakened in the eighteenth century, not only by general causes, which were operating elsewhere, but also by two smaller and more special causes. The first of these minor causes was,

as we have just seen, the Union with England. The other cause was, comparatively speaking, insignificant, but still it produced decided effect, particularly in the northern districts. It consisted in the fact, that some of the oldest Highland nobles were concerned in the rebellion of 1745, and that, when that rebellion was put down, those who escaped from the sword were glad to save their lives by flying abroad, leaving their dependents to shift for themselves.104 They became attached to the court of the Pretender, or, at all events, intrigued for him. That, indeed, was their only chance, their estates at home being forfeited. For nearly forty years, several great families were in exile, and although, about 1784, they began to return,10% other associations had been formed during their absence, and new ideas had arisen, both in their own minds, and in the minds of their retainers. A fresh generation had grown up, and fresh influences had been brought to bear. Strangers, with whom the people had no sympathy, had intruded upon the estates of the nobles, and though they might receive obedience, it was an obedience unaccompanied by deference. The real reverence was gone; the homage of the heart was no more. And as this state of things lasted for about forty years, it interrupted the old train of thought; and the former habits were so completely broken, that, even when the chiefs were restored to their forfeited honours, they found that there was another part of their inheritance which

104 The Chevalier de Johnstone, in his plaintive remarks on the battle of Culloden, says: "The ruin of many of the most illustrious families in Scotland immediately followed our defeat." Johnstone's Memoirs of the Rebellion in 1745, p. 211. He, of course, could not perceive that, sad as such ruin was to the individual sufferers, it was an immense benefit to the nation. Mr. Skene, referring to the year 1748, says of the Highlanders: “their long-cherished ideas of clanship gradually gave way under the absence and ruin of so many of their chiefs." Skene's Highlanders, vol. i. p. 147.

105 About 1784, the exiled families began to return. Penny's Traditions of Perth, p. 41. See also Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iv. p. 53. In 1784, "a bill passed the Commons without opposition," to restore the "Forfeited Estates" in the north of Scotland. See Parliamentary History, vol. xxiv. pp. 1316-1322. On that occasion, Fox said (p. 1321), the proprietors "had been sufficiently punished by forty years' deprivation of their fortunes for the faults of their ancestors."