The inhabitants of ancient Scotland were different!} estimated. By one class of writers they are described as a demi-savage race, ["The people are proud, vain-glorious boasters, arrogant, bloody, barbarous, and inhuman butchers." See "A modern Account of Scotland, being an exact Description of the Country, and a True Character of the People and their manners, written from thence by an English Gentleman." Lond. 1714.]—a people selfish and calculating, incapable of culture, and inconstant in friendship. Others have commended the natives of North Britain for qualities of the very opposite character. By these, Scotsmen have been extolled for their manly independence, sterling integrity, honourable candour and vigorous perseverance. Though stern in manners and rude in speech, their apologists have discovered, under a harsh exterior, no inconsiderable warmth of affection and much genuine urbanity. These pages may cast a measure of light on those conflicting sentiments.

It would not be difficult to draw very opposite conclusions from the revelations of the national historians. Almost in the same page we read of Wallace the patriot and of the corrupt Menteith who betrayed him. In strange contrast with Robert Bruce, who resisted the inroads of southern domination, we read of the eight claimants to the throne, who acknowledged Edward I. of England as their liege lord.  In startling opposition to John Knox, who refused a bishopric, and was content to be poor in worldly estate, we discover a grasping nobility, who under the pretext of religion, plundered the church and starved the clergy. In the course of one century we find sovereign princes encouraging the people to resist the aggressions of England, and in the next we perceive Scottish monarchs using the English sceptre to crush the liberties of their northern subjects. The same century which produced the adherents of the Covenant, who struggled for religious liberty, was fruitful in tyrants who trampled on the dearest privileges of their fellow-countrymen. The worst persecutors of the Covenanters were recreant Presbyterians. The Marquis of Montrose swore to uphold the Covenant, but the smiles of Court favour led him to crush it. The treachery of Montrose towards the Covenanters evoked similar procedure towards himself: he was betrayed by M'Leod of Assynt, his trusted friend, James Sharp was leader of the moderate Presbyterians; the offer of a mitre changed him into a bigoted Episcopalian and a persecutor.

The happy event of the Revolution was materially promoted by the uncompromising spirit of the Scottish people in resisting the despotism of the Stuart kings; yet Scotland became the scene of three distinct insurrections in support of this exiled house. Sir John Dalrymple, a Scotsman, planned the Massacre of Glencoe, that deed which especially stains the fame of William III. Sir James Montgomery, one of the three commissioners who offered the Scottish crown to William in 1689, declared himself, in a few months, a supporter of King James. The Earl of Mar welcomed George I. on his arrival to assume the British sceptre; then hastened to Scotland to raise a revolt against his government. His lordship's brother, Mr. Erskine of Grange, prayed with the Presbyterians, got drunk with the Jacobites, and sent his wife into exile lest she should expose his inconsistencies. Lord Gray was a vehement loyalist, bat a cold reception from the Duke of Cumberland rendered him a Jacobite. The political Union in 1707 was a happy event; but it was achieved through the bribery of Scottish nobles.

The Reformation originated among the common people. They were most imperfectly acquainted with the principles for which they contended. There were no parish schools; inquiry into the doctrines of the church was prohibited ; no translation of the Scriptures had yet been printed in Scotland. Copies of the version published in England had indeed been imported; but these were exclusively possessed by the wealthy, and could be useful only to those able to read. The sacerdotal order were supreme. They possessed one-third of the lands, and exercised half the power of the state; they claimed profound reverence; they extorted confession, and gained the popular secrets. By their excommunications they denied to their opponents food and shelter on earth, and closed the gates of heaven upon them hereafter. Amidst such surroundings the people were not deterred from rallying round the banner of Reformation. They had begun to associate sacerdotal pretension with crushing imposts—ecclesiasticism with injustice. Before the Reformation churchmen levied the tenth of everything; they took the peasant's tenth egg  The people at length discovered that they were bound in a disgraceful servitude. They quitted Egypt and spoiled the Egyptians,—they pillaged cathedral churches; they helped the nobility to seize the revenues of a rapacious priesthood.

Not the people only, but their rulers, joined against the adherents of the ancient hierarchy. In 1561, when Queen Mary was residing at Holyrood, the Town Council of Edinburgh caused a proclamation to be published at the Cross, ordering "all and sundry monks, friars, priests, and all other papists and profane persons," to quit the city in twenty-four hours. The proclamation added that all who were found disobedient to the order should be "burned in the cheek," and "hailed through the town upon ane cart." In the following spring a Romish priest was tried at Edinburgh for baptizing and solemnising marriage according to the rites of his communion; and in another year the Catholic Archbishop of St. Andrews was put to an assize for celebrating mass, and on this account convicted and imprisoned. Within other two years a priest was, for exercising the offices of his religion, mobbed in the streets of the capital, pilloried, and egg-pelted. Prosecutions for being present at mass were common; and the offenders were subjected to imprisonment and forfeiture. For asserting the authority of the Pope, John Ogilvie, a Jesuit priest, was in 1615 seized by Archbishop Spottiswood, and hanged. The country mansion of the Lord Provost of Edinburgh was burned in the winter of 1668-9 ; the students of the university were believed to have been the perpetrators, to mark their sense of the magistrate's papistical leanings.

The Reformers associated the places of worship with the obnoxious rites which had been conducted under their roofs. Knox said, "Pull down the nests." It was enough. The religious houses were unroofed; some were thrown down; all were pillaged. Parish churches were deprived of their ornaments; the statuettes of saints were torn from their niches and bruised; the ancient oak furniture of cathedrals and convents was broken up, carried off, and burned. In 1574 the Kirk session of Aberdeen ordained "that the organis with all expeditioun be removit out of the kirk, and made profeit of to the use and support of the poore." Similar enactments were made everywhere. The Synod of Fife held periodical "visitations " for removing from the different parish churches "sindrie desks," "crosier staffes," "Bischops armis," and "divers crosses."

Monuments, cenotaphs, and tombstones, which, in the parish churches, commemorated the piety of churchmen, or the beneficence of members of the laity, were ruthlessly destroyed. The General Assembly condemned them as monuments of idolatry ; only a few escaped destruction. Their contents were rifled ; coffin mountings were torn off, and the dust of departed worthies scattered about. In 1640 the General Assembly ordained Presbyteries and Provincial Synods to complete the destruction of monuments in churches. The Act was renewed in 1643, with an additional prevision "inhibiting persons to hang pensils (little flags) or brods to affix honours or armis . . to the honour or remembrance of any deceased person within the kirk."

Many ancient Runic crosses stood in the vicinity of parish churches, whither they had been removed for greater safety. Presbyterian ecclesiastics associated these with Romish practices, and the General Assembly and the inferior judicatories ordered them to be demolished. Some were concealed in the earth, but the majority were destroyed.

Some persons were unwilling to remove their family tombstones at the bidding of the church. On such occasions strenuous measures were adopted by the ecclesiastical courts. On the 19th June, 1649, the Presbytery of Irvine held a special meeting at Kilmarnock, respecting a tomb in the church of that place, which had been condemned by the Kirk session as containing "a graven image." The following deliverance was passed:—"Anent ane superstitious image upon my Lord Boyd, his tomb, it was the Presbytery's mind, that his lordship should be written to that he would be pleased to demolish and drag it down, and if he did not, then the Presbytery was to take a farther course." That "further course" would have been a sentence of excommunication. So Lord Boyd removed the statue of his ancestor from the family tomb. [For a detailed account of prosecutions for non-conformity, see Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, vol. I., part L, p. 435, and part ii., p. 38. Edinb , 1833. 413.]

The zeal of the Reformers in the removal of objects of decorative art did not pause at the threshold of the parish church. In 1640 the Kirk session of Aberdeen ordered the removal of a portrait of "Reid of Pitfoddels" from the vestry of the church, because a military gentleman had denounced it "as smelling somewhat of Popery." The church likewise exercised a vigilant superintendence in respect of carvings or other ornaments in private houses. The Presbytery of St. Andrews, at their meeting on the 30th August, 1643, heard the report of two of the brethren, who had been appointed in a certain inquisitorial piece of business. The minute proceeds thus:—

"Mr. David Forrett shew that he and Mr. John Barron were at the house of Pitcullo, and declares there are upon the frontispiece of the house some monument of superstition. The presbytery appoints a letter to be .written to the Lord Burghley, intreating him to give orders for demolishing all monuments of the kind." No doubt. Lord Burghley had to part with the sculptured tablet on the front of his mansion.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries churches were erected without any semblance of ornament; and the sculptures and ornaments of the older structures were buried in the walls. The larger stones, which had formed altar-pieces, or been connected with the ancient tombs, were used as pavement. From those edifices which had escaped destruction, carved entablatures, niches, pinnacles, and mullions were carefully removed. Pillars and groined arches were besmeared with plaster and otherwise discoloured.

The Reformers abhorred the idea of consecrated places; they encouraged the people to enter places of worship with their heads covered. For nearly two centuries after the Reformation, the male members of every congregation sat on the forms, or in the pews, with their hats on till the minister entered the pulpit and announced the opening psalm. They remained uncovered during praise and prayer, but when the text was announced they resumed their hats. When the minister in his discourse said anything uncommonly striking, he was applauded by a beating on the pavement, or the clapping of hands. So lately as the commencement of the present century, the Reverend Sir Henry Moncreiff, Bart., an eminent evangelical clergyman at Edinburgh, walked from the vestry through the church covered, only removing his hat when he reached the pulpit. In rural parishes the peasantry still enter the church covered. Neither minister nor people engage in private prayer at the commencement or close of the service. When the benediction is pronounced, all rush from the building with alacrity, and often with confusion.

The Presbyterian clergy conducted divine worship long after the Reformation without any regard to external reverence. Country ministers wore in the pulpit "hodden grey." When the weather was cold, they enclosed themselves in plaids and cloaks. The latter practice was disallowed by Act of Assembly in 1575. By the same Act the clergy and their wives were enjoined to wear grave and becoming apparel, and were prohibited "all kind of light and variant hues in clothing, as red, blue, yellow, and such like," also "silk hats, and hats of divers and light colours," and "the wearing of rings, bracelets, buttons of silver, gold, and other metal."

After his accession to the English throne, James VI. was struck by the superior costumes of the English clergy, and sought to impress on Scottish pastors the propriety of adopting a more becoming attire while discharging their public duties. At his royal request, the Estates of Parliament passed a decree providing that "everie preacheour of Goddis Word sail hereafter wear black, grave, and comelie apparel;" and the king was further authorized to prescribe the precise style and character of the pulpit robe. The General Assembly enjoined the clergy to attend church courts in their gowns. But the Acts of the Estates and of the supreme ecclesiastical judicatory were both, habitually transgressed. During the last century few country ministers used either gown or band.

The Presbyterians avoided every practice, whether in worship or private life, which could in any measure recall the usages of the Romish ritual. In reference to this peculiarity, Sir Andrew Weldon, an English satirist, who attended King James in a royal progress to the north, has used these bitter words :—"They (the Scots) christen without the cross, marry without the ring, receive the sacrament without repentance, and bury without Divine service." Had the ill-natured knight known all, he might have added that funeral sermons were proscribed, and that a little mound of earth was the only monument permitted to denote the burial-place of a departed friend. An Act of the General Assembly, passed in 1638, discharging funeral sermons, as savouring of idolatry, was afterwards negatived by common consent, and tombstones were permitted.

The question of postures in public worship is still unsettled. The early Presbyterians knelt during prayer, and stood while engaged in praise. When constituting the meetings of the court, the Moderator of the General Assembly prayed upon his knees. But the early Reformers, ever anxious to eschew imitation of ancient rites, contrived gradually to introduce a new system. During the seventeenth century, nearly every Scottish Presbyterian congregation retained their seats at praise, and stood while the pastor conducted their devotions. These practices continue, but there is some prospect of a salutary change. The irreverent manner of Scottish Presbyterian worshippers during public prayer is a scandal to the Christian world.

Before the Reformation the principal churches were provided with organs; in the smaller places of worship musical choirs conducted the department of praise. Many of the hymns chanted were in the Latin tongue, and both words and music were unintelligible to the people. The Scottish Reformers proceeded to an opposite extreme. They adopted the "Godlie and Spiritual Songs of James Wedderburne," composed some years before the Reformation, which adapted to devotional words the tunes which had heretofore been associated with the popular minstrelsy. The plan did not succeed, and the Reformers were compelled to fall back on sacred tunes, and to adapt these to a metrical version of the Psalms of David. In the earlier portion of the last century, when hymns were beginning to be used by other churches, it was suggested in the General Assembly that the church ought to possess a collection of sacred songs, apart from the metrical psalms, for the use of congregations. The proposal was resented as a dangerous innovation ; but it was agreed to appoint a committee to consider the proposition, and to report upon it. After the subject had been discussed in successive Assemblies, a small selection of paraphrases and hymns was adopted in 1745, and these have since, along with the Scottish version of the Psalms, been bound up with copies of the Bible published in North Britain. The older clergy positively refused to use the paraphrases ; but they have for upwards of half a century been sung in all the congregations. Modern attempts to add to the number of the paraphrases and hymns have uniformly failed.

The destruction of church organs at the Reformation has been referred to. No attempt at their restoration was made till 1617, when an organ was built, and choristers introduced into the chapel royal, by James VI. In 1631 Charles I. issued an edict ordering that organs should be erected in every cathedral church. Five years after this date we find the Town Council of Edinburgh entering into proposals for building an organ in St. Giles' church; but the celebrated General Assembly of 1638 put a stop to any further progress towards the restoration of instrumental music in Scottish churches.

The organ question remained quiescent till 1806, when the Rev. Dr. Ritchie, minister of St. Andrews church, Glasgow, resolved, with the entire approval of his people, to use an organ in his place of worship. An organ was accordingly built, and was used in St. Andrews church on the last Sunday of August, 1807. The boldness of this proceeding caused a profound sensation. Both the presbytery and the city council resisted what they characterized as a most dangerous innovation. Meanwhile Dr. Ritchie accepted a call to the High Church of Edinburgh, and the controversy was closed. Through the efforts of the late Dr. Robert Lee, minister of Greyfriars church, Edinburgh, and professor of theology, the organ question, along with the subject of postures in worship, and other ecclesiastical matters, was brought prominently under the notice of the church courts a few years ago. Dr. Lee first used a harmonium, and afterwards erected an organ in the Greyfriars church. The General Assembly was at first disposed to discountenance and crush the movement, but milder counsels prevailed; and it has been ruled in the supreme judicatory that any congregation desiring to use an organ in their public devotions, may be permitted to do so with the approval of the local presbytery. Many congregations have availed themselves of the indulgence.

For a century after the Reformation, Presbyterian church services were protracted to a length of which we can now hardly form a conception. In the western districts the churches were on Sundays opened at sunrise, and closed only at dusk. During the whole of that period religious services were conducted. An official called the reader read portions of Scripture, and when he was exhausted others took his place. There were occasional interludes of psalm-singing. The service conducted by the clergyman continued about four hours. Two clerical services were held. Both prayers and discourses were delivered without book or manuscript notes; and were, consequently, full of repetitions and commonplaces. Some of the more zealous clergy "insisted"—that is, expatiated in their discourses for two hours; others prayed for an hour without intermission. At the annual or biennial celebration of the communion, a succession of clergymen preached both in the church and from a tent in the churchyard. Tent preachings were not entirely discontinued at the commencement of the present century.

The church courts enforced attendance upon ordinances. Kirk sessions were enjoined to see that every parishioner was present at each diet of worship, and to "delate," or accuse those who absented themselves. The church likewise insisted that every adult should at least once a year partake of the communion. The latter regulation was ratified by the Estates of Parliament. In 1600 the Estates enacted that certain penalties should, for the use of the church, be inflicted on those who neglected the ordinance. From an earl was exacted the penalty of one thousand pounds Scots; a lord was mulcted in one thousand marks; a baron or landowner in three hundred marks; and a yeoman in forty pounds, Scottish money. Burgesses were held liable to pay such fines as their several corporations might impose.

When attendance on ordinances was compulsory, and the services were protracted, it may be supposed that many persons would seek rest in slumber. At the commencement of the seventeenth century sleeping in church, on the part of elderly females, was so common, that the General Assembly ordained Kirk sessions "to take order for the suppression of the habit and the punishment of offenders/' Accordingly, females were prohibited from wearing plaids or hoods upon their heads in time of Divine service, that they might not sleep unobserved. By several of the local judicatories it was ordained that sleepers should be wakened by the beadle, or sexton, who was provided with "ane long pole" wherewith to arouse them.

During the ascendancy of Episcopacy, the ecclesiastical tribunals were especially severe in punishing those disobedient to their authority. On his restoration to the throne, Charles II., who, in the days of his adversity, had consorted with the Scottish Presbyterians, and sworn to uphold the Covenant, proceeded to evince a deadly hatred to the Presbyterian cause. On the 10th July, 1663, the Estates of Parliament, at the king's instance, passed an Act, ordering all ministers who had entered on their livings from 1649 to procure presentation from the patron and collation from the bishop, on the pain of being held as seditious. Laymen who refused to conform to episcopacy were deprived of a fourth of their goods. The result is well known. A large proportion of the clergy renounced their livings; but these were not permitted to minister to that portion of their flocks who might adhere to them. They were banished to localities at least twenty miles from their former scenes of labour. The treacherous and unprincipled James Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews, on his accession to power in 1671, procured an Act of the Estates, which conferred on the bishops greater power against the Presbyterians than they ever ventured to exert. He established the notorious High Commission Court, which prosecuted without an indictment, suborned witnesses, allowed no one to plead till he had made some declaration that his conscience disapproved, and which sentenced Presbyterians to be scourged, branded with red-hot irons, and banished to Barbadoes.

On the 8th May, 16S5, the Estates of Parliament enacted, at the special request of James VII., that further penalties should be enforced against the frequenters of conventicles. The Presbyterians were now pursued by troopers, and shot like dogs; the Scottish bishops commending these acts of atrocity and bloodshed. Sir James Turner, an Englishman, who commanded a troop of horse in the work of suppression, afterwards declared that he could never satisfy Scottish churchmen that his severities were sufficient. The Earl of Lauderdale, one of the most violent of the persecutors, was a coarse sensualist; he would not have interfered in the concerns of religion, about which he cared nothing, unless for the mean flattery of the bishops. General Dalziel was partially insane; he loved war, and was willing to do the bidding of those who could recommend him to court favour. Grierson of Lag was a tool in the hands of the church. John Graham, of Claver-house, was not originally a man of blood. When he held the office of Constable of Dundee, he obtained permission from the Privy Council to inflict on delinquents milder punishments than those prescribed in the statute-book. But Graham possessed implicit faith in the episcopal clergy, and persuaded himself that the execution of a refractory Presbyterian was an act useful to society, to religion, and the church. In reference to this portion of the national history, we quote from the "History of Moray." ["History of the Province of Moray." By the Rev. Lachlan Shaw. Elgin, 1827.]

"In time of presbytery, after the year 1638, ministers who would not subscribe the Covenant, or who conversed with the Marquis of Huntly or the Marquis of Montrose, or who took a protection from them, were suspended, deprived, or deposed; and gentlemen who took part with Huntly or Montrose were tossed from one judicatory to another, made to undergo a mock penance in sackcloth, and to swear to the Covenant. Under Prelacy, on the other hand, after the Restoration, the Presbyterians, and all who opposed court measures, had no enemies more virulent than the clergy. They informed against them, made the court raise a cruel persecution, and made insidious and sanguinary laws for fining, imprisoning, intercommuning, and hanging them."

At the Revolution in 1688, Presbyterianism was reestablished, while those who adhered to the Episcopal church, by strongly attaching themselves to the cause of the exded Stuarts, lost the favour of the court, and were not even permitted to assemble for worship. In February, 1712, an Act was passed, which secured toleration to such of the Episcopal clergy as should take the oath of abjuration.. The enactment was keenly resisted by the Presbyterians. They contended that the Act dispossessed them of the power of enforcing uniformity of worship, which they conceived had been granted them at the Reformation.

Presbyterian discipline was rigid in the extreme. Church courts took cognizance of every species of offence;—they presented delinquents for punishment to the civil authorities. They met every Sunday to inquire concerning evil reports, on which they instituted proceedings rigorous and inquisitorial. Sir Andrew Weldon, the English satirist, writes, with a measure of truth, "Their Sabbath exercises are a preaching in the forenoon, and a persecuting in the afternoon." They condemned merry-making of every sort. The vocations of "minstrel" and "piper" were proscribed. In 1569 "two poets" were hanged.

Those arraigned before Kirk sessions were not permitted any legal counsel. They were urged to make confession—when they confessed, punishment uniformly followed. The modes of punishment were various. Those absent from a single diet of worship, or those who had committed some other minor offence, were "sharplie rebukit." Few escaped so easily; the majority were sentenced to stand one or more Sundays on a sort of pillory, about three feet in height, placed in front of the pulpit. In most parishes, those who were mounted upon the pillory, or repentance stool, were compelled to wear a dingy white dress, as an emblem of humility and penitence. Those who attempted to conceal their faces in the folds of their garments were subjected to further indignities. The jugs, and other instruments of ecclesiastical censure, are described in the seventh chapter of the present work.

For three centimes Presbyterianism has been the religion of the people. The yoke of its severe discipline has not retarded its acceptance. The introduction of the laity into the church courts has considerably tended towards its popularity. The parochial judicatory, or kirk-session, is constituted by the clergyman as perpetual moderator, with leading parishioners as ordinary members. These kirk-session courts formerly assessed for the poor, and generally administered the parochial affairs. In matters of discipline they exercised unlimited control, for though appeals to the superior judicatories were permitted, these were carried out with difficulty, and were therefore seldom attempted.

The principal concern of kirk-sessions in the earlier times was the suppression of witchcraft. It is a deplorable illustration of the inconsistency of human nature to find the Presbyterian clergy, who were striving to uproot Romish superstition, evincing a credulity respecting demoniacal possession such as had not been cherished by the Papacy in its worst times. They were the chief promoters of prosecutions for witchcraft, and were ready to condemn without proof all who were accused. Prickers of witches were rewarded by kirk-sessions, which likewise voted supplies of fuel to consume the miserable victims. Committees of the clergy attended every burning, and none were more unmoved by the screams of the sufferers.

When nearly every other description of educated persons were satisfied that the crime of witchcraft had no real existence, the clergy continued to urge the reality of the offence, and insisted on its punishment. In 1702, a witch was hanged at Edinburgh. One of the ministers of the city, with a humanity greater than was ordinarily manifested by those of his profession, approached the convict, and requested her to repeat after him the Lord's prayer. The poor victim assented. "Our Father which art in heaven," said the clergyman. "Our Father which wart in heaven," said the woman. "Say," added the minister, "I renounce the devil." "I unce the devil," said the woman. The clergyman retired, and informed the bystanders that the case was hopeless, since the witch had invoked the devil twice. The poor woman had spoken her mother tongue! On the repeal of the statutes against witchcraft, in 1735, many of the Scottish clergy strongly remonstrated. In 1743, the Synod of the Secession Church issued a declaration denouncing the measure as invoking the displeasure of Heaven.

The rigid discipline of the Church did not materially ameliorate the manners even of the clergy themselves. John Kello, minister of Spott, was executed, in 1570, for poisoning his wife. For the infraction of his marriage vow, Paul Methven, minister of Jedburgh, sought pardon from the General Assembly, in 1563. For a similar offence Robert Menteith,* minister of Duddingston, was,

* The following notice of Robert Menteith, by a contemporary, we have discovered among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum :—

The degraded condition of the clergy was mainly due to the rapacity of the nobles. In resuming possession of lands wrested from their ancestors, the nobility were indifferent with respect to the worldly condition of the Reformed teachers. In 1275, the revenues of the bishopric of St. Andrews were equal to £37,000 of modern money, and, at the Reformation, they had reached the value of £45,000. Eleven other bishoprics were also most liberally endowed. Many of the abbeys and monasteries were celebrated for their opulence. In 1561, a regulation was made by which the rents of benefices were to be divided into three parts, two of which were to be retained by the Roman Catholic bishops and clergy, while the remaining third was to be dedicated to the support of the Reformed Church, and towards supplementing the ordinary revenues of the country. Nominally a third of the third was set apart for the maintenance of the new teachers. In reality the grant for ecclesiastical purposes was limited to £2,400 Scottish money, which, had all the thousand parishes been supplied with ministers, [In 1567 there were about 289 ministers and 715 readers. Many of the readers had been parish priests, and were probationers for the Reformed pastorate. In some of the rural parishes the priest renounced his status to become reader to his flock in the Reformed Church. John McVicar, priest of Inverary, suited himself to the two parties of his parishioners—those who embraced the Reformed doctrines, and those who remained in the old faith. He continued to conduct ordinances according to both systems. The further appointment of reader was forbidden by the General Assembly in 1581, but the office was not entirely abolished till 1645.] would have allotted not more than thirty-six marks, or less than two pounds sterling, to each incumbent. As one of the ministers of the city of Edinburgh, John Knox was allowed a stipend of 400 marks, or £20. The ministers of Glasgow, St. Andrews, Perth, Aberdeen, Stirling, and Dundee received incomes varying from £12 to £15. But the parochial clergy seldom possessed an income exceeding a hundred marks, or five pounds sterling.

From a return made to the General Assembly about the middle of the last century, it appears that the stipends of 40 parish ministers were under £40, 40 under £45, 126 under £50, 84 under £55, 119 under £60, 94 under £65, and 119 under £70. So recently as 1810, 196 livings were under the annual value of £150. These have been raised to £150 by an Exchequer grant.

Presbyterian discipline did not improve the morals of the nobility any more than extend their liberality. The nobles paid an external respect to ordinances, but were really unconcerned about every description of religious belief. They carried arms, and used them against each other on the slightest provocation. They accepted bribes in dispensing justice, and offered them in return. When compelled to undergo an assize they brought their followers to court, and overawed the jury. They changed from Popery to Presbytery, and then to Prelacy, as their interests prompted. They subscribed the Covenant to avoid the censure of the Kirk, and joined Episcopacy to gain the favour of the Kmg. "The Staggering State of Scottish Statesmen" was an appropriate title given, by a witty Scotsman, to a work on the political history of his country. Church discipline was equally lost on the humbler classes of society. Knox styled those who destroyed the cathedrals "the rascal multitude." The people long continued in brutish ignorance. A comet, an eclipse, the occurrence of an earthquake, moved them to consternation. They ascribed pestilential diseases, witchcraft, and storms and tempests to the devil. Convictions for witchcraft were accomplished by means of witch-finders, who were rewarded with half the goods of the accused. There were persons in every district who would swear to anything. Slander, uncleanness, and blasphemy abounded everywhere.

The Scots regarded every domestic and social occurrence fit occasion for indulging in the national beverages. These were originally of an inoffensive character. The Highlanders punctured the birch trees in spring, and extracted from them a liquid which fermented, and became a gentle stimulant. The ancient Lowlanders prepared a species of liquor from the mountain heath. At what period usquebaugh or whisky was introduced cannot be discovered. It was certainly distilled in the fifteenth century. Onward from that period copious libations of ale and whisky have attended the infant in his cradle and the aged in his shroud. The peasant-sire has hailed his first-born in the foaming bicker and when he has lost wife or child has again resorted to it in the hope of comfort.

From discharging her duties at a birth the midwife was not expected to retire perfectly sober, and "neibour wives" congratulated the parents at banquets of "butter-saps" and whisky. The christening was a merry occasion. The only guests who left retaining perfect self-command were the minister and his "leddy." Marriage feasts continued several days, and the dissipation which they occasioned was a scandal. The lykewake, or watching of a corpse after death till burial, was attended with revolting intemperance; recreation being forbidden, drinking was the only employment permitted to the watchers. At funerals men drank so hard that occurrences were not rare in which funeral parties dropped the body in their progress to the churchyard. Bargains and transactions of all sorts were commenced or ratified with libations of ale or whisky. "Here's to the gude cause," said a Scottish soldier to his comrade, as he quaffed a gill of whisky immediately before a battle. "Oh, man, an' drinkin' wad do it!" heartily responded his associate.

Alehouses were abundant everywhere. Forty public breweries in a town of 3,000 inhabitants was a common average. In addition to these, every community possessed a body of dames known as brewster wives. These made the "home-brewed," which they retailed to "particular freens," as they affectionately termed those who patronized their taverns.

Drinking was confined to no particular class. All tippled, from the prince t to the gaberlunzie. Till 1780 claret was imported free of duty; it was much used by the middle and upper classes. Noblemen stored hogsheads of claret in their halls, making them patent to all visitors. Guests received a cup of the wine when they entered, and another on their departure. Claret was described as a cure for all ailments; in winter it diffused warmth, in summer it negatived the bad effects of more potent beverages. The aristocracy dined early. During the sixteenth century, twelve o'clock was a dinner hour in highest fashion. Two o'clock in the following century was more common among the upper ranks. A later hour was not adopted till long afterwards. The substantiate of dinner were consumed without liquor; drinking set in afterwards. The potations of those who frequented dinner-parties were enormous ; persons who could not drink remained at home. There was a system of toasts and sentiments, which prevented any member of the company escaping without his proportion of liquor. Every guest was expected to name an absent lady, while to each lady was assigned an absent gentleman. Both were toasted in a glass which must be drunk off, and upturned in evidence of enthusiasm. The sentiments were legion; some were coarse, others ingenious. When the guests were voiciferously celebrating the sentiment, "May ne'er waur be amang us," there were some in a helpless condition under the table. A landlord was considered inhospitable who permitted any of his guests to retire without their requiring the assistance of his servants. Those who tarried for the night found in their bedrooms a copious supply of ale, wine, and brandy, to allay the thirst superinduced by their previous potations. Those who insisted on returning home were rendered still more incapable of prosecuting their journeys by being compelled, according to the inexorable usage, to swallow a deoch-an-doruis or stirrup-cup, which was commonly a vessel, like the Lion bicker of Glammis, of very formidable dimensions.

The Edinburgh clubs were scenes of dissipation in its most revolting forms. The Poker club was composed of men of letters, whose social indulgences ill corresponded with their literary tastes. From their club the members staggered home more or less intoxicated. Their conversation was most unworthy of those who could compose elegant essays and produce volumes of philosophy. "Where does John Clark reside?" imperfectly articulated the celebrated advocate of that name, to one of "the guard," at four in the morning. "Why, you're John Clark himsel'," answered the guardsman. "Yes," said the querist, "but I was not asking for John Clark, but for his house." All public business in Edinburgh was transacted in the tavern. When clients applied for the advice of learned counsellors, the parties retired together from the Parliament House to one of the taverns in "the square," and the learned gentleman first consulted as to what his client would have to drink. The Glasgow clubs were very numerous, and very drunken. At these gatherings there was neither art nor science to restrain the levity of wit, or check the profanity of the conversation. The clubs of provincial places were worse, if a worse state of society could exist. The levity of the club-house stalked abroad, and poisoned social manners.

At public entertainments there were usages of an outrageous character. One custom which prevailed till the close of the last century may be noticed. When the company had drunk deeply, but were not quite intoxicated, they relieved the monotony of the evening by engaging in a pastime which had nothing, save its barbarity, to recommend it. The landlord introduced farm spades and shovels, and on these the members of 'the dinner-party endeavoured to raise each other by turns. The more robust succeeded in elevating the weaker, whom they next endeavoured to throw to the greatest distance. The person thrown was supposed to be protected by his neighbours from falling heavily, but he would occasionally be deposited upon the table, whence he scattered the shivered glass upon the floor of the apartment.

By our late friend, Dr. Strang, the condition of the Glasgow clubs a hundred years ago is thus described: ["Glasgow and its Clubs," by John Strang, LL.D. Loncl. 1857. 4 to. Pp. 1, 2.] "In 1750, and for many years previous, it was the custom for persons of all ranks and conditions to meet regularly in change-houses, as they were called, and there to transact business, and hold their different clubs. The evening assemblies were passed in free and easy conversation, and without much expense,—persons of the first fashion rarely spending more than from fourpence to eightpence each, including their pipes of tobacco, which were then in general use. In some of those clubs the members played at backgammon, or 'catch the ten,' the stake exceeding but rarely one penny a game. In the forenoon all business was transacted or finished in the tavern. The lawyers were there consulted, and the bill was paid by the client. The liquor in common use was sherry, presented in mutchkin stoups, every mutchkin got being chalked on the head of the stoup or measure. The quantity swallowed was, on such occasions, almost incredible."

Municipal and parliamentary electioneering was rotten to the core. Money achieved everything. "What are your terms?" was a question put to the agent of every candidate for parliamentary or municipal honours. Candidates bribed in person. A hairdresser had received five pounds from a candidate for shaving him. The day after the candidate ascertained that the hairdresser had shaved his rival with a similar recompense.

"You have been shaving Lord------," said the candidate to his quondam friend. "Yes," replied the hairdresser, "I wanted to pleasure ye baith."

The celebrated George Dempster, of Dunnichen, obtained his seat in Parliament, in 1762, by bribing the magistrates and councillors of the Fife and Forfar burghs. Having been opposed by an opulent competitor, he had to dispose of two estates to secure his seat. The city of St. Andrews was one of the chain of burghs. On his retirement from public life, Mr. Dempster occasionally resided at this ancient seat of learning. Visiting an old friend one morning, he found him employed in his garden. "I am sorry I canna shake hands wi' ye, Maister Dempster," said his friend, "for my hands are soiled; I've been diggin'." "Don't heed," said the ex-member; "many a dirty hand I've shaken in St. Andrews." Mr. Dempster referred to the hands which had accepted bribes.

In 1775, the Court of Session disfranchised the burgh of Stirling, for corrupt practices, a judgment which was confirmed by the House of Lords. The particulars of this case may not be unacceptable. Several burgesses of Stirling brought a complaint against the magistrates and council, alleging that certain of their number had bound themselves by an illegal compact, and for their personal gain, to bear permanent authority in the burgh. The instrument of compact, which was discovered by the complainers, was in the following terms :—

"We, Henry Jaffray, James Alexander, and James Burd, all presently members of the Town Council of Stirling, considering that we have each of us at present a considerable interest in the said Council, and that, by joining together and modelling the Council at the next and other Michaelmas elections in time coming, we may secure to ourselves the total management of the burgh during our lives, and that this will be much for the benefit of us and our friends, do therefore solemnly agree, and bind, and oblige ourselves to the following articles :—

"Imprimis:—That we shall stand by and support each other during our lives in the politics and election matters of the burgh, and particularly that each of us shall have an equal number of friends in the merchant council, as near as may be, who are to be brought in under engagements to support our joint interest; and no person is to be named by any of us without the consent of all the three; and in order more effectually to carry this our plan into execution, we here agree to weaken the interest of Nicol Bryce, and by degrees to exclude him and his friends from the Council altogether; and in general we are to unite and consider ourselves as one man in managing the elections of the burgh, and to take no step but for the mutual interest and with the concurrence of each other.

"Secondly. —That we shall likewise be united in the administration of the affairs of the burgh, and of the hospitals; and that each of us shall have an equal share in the disposal of all such offices as are dependent upon the Council, and shall bestow them upon our friends ; but in such manner that they shall go in rotation among them, and shall not be too long enjoyed by the friends of any one of us, to the prejudice of the friends of the others. 3rdly. Whereas we have agreed to elect John McGibbon, junior, into the office of town clerk, jointly with his father, and to succeed to the said office upon his death, on condition that a part of the emoluments of said office shall be at our disposal, and that it appears to us that £25 sterling is a reasonable sum to be paid by him to us ; we do therefore agree to divide the said £25 per annum equally among us, or that the sum shall be equally at our disposal; and the said John McGibbon is to grant bond to us accordingly. 4thly. Whereas it will be in our power, in time coming, at every election of a member of Parliament for the district, during our lives to give the vote of the burgh of Stirling to any candidate for the said district who shall be most acceptable to us; and that we will be entitled, at every such election, to receive money and rewards suitable to the occasion, and which rewards it is reasonable we should divide equally among us; we do therefore bind and oblige ourselves to make an equal division of all moneys so to be received by any of us upon occasion of any election for the district, and of all profits and emoluments arising from offices conferred upon any of us by the members of Parliament, or by any person or persons standing candidate to represent us in Parliament during our joint lives. 5thly. In order to render ourselves popular in the burgh, and that our management may be acceptable to the whole inhabitants, we engage that when a vacancy happens in the charge of any of the town's ministers, we shall procure the same to be filled up by an evangelical minister or preacher, such as shall be most agreeable to the bulk of the people. And, lastly. We do solemnly engage that each and all of us shall keep this bond an inviolable secret from every other person. In witness whereof," &c. In addition to this remarkable document, the complaining burgesses produced a list of councillors who had promised to vote in every municipal question precisely as they might be asked by the persons subscribing the compact. The Court of Session pronounced the compact "illegal, unwarrantable, and contra bonos mores;" reduced the two preceding elections of town councillors, severely reproved the three "bondsmen," and deprived the burgh of its municipal privileges.

A prosperous merchant at Stirling, named Cowan, had early in the seventeenth century bequeathed his estate to the Guildry for the support of decayed burgesses. The bequest included a considerable estate in the vicinity. For many years the administrators of the charity conserved their individual benefit, in farming the lands, and dispensing the bounties. An Act of Parliament was procured, which put a check to these discreditable practices.

Town Councils were liberal in granting honorary privileges to those who could not use them. They were reluctant to confer municipal rights upon those who proposed to engage in trade. Heavy imposts were exacted. By a minute, dated 4th March, 1543, the Town Council of Haddington authorized the provost and bailies to lock up all persons' doors that are not burgesses, until they be made such. When the celebrated James Watt started as a mathematical instrument maker in Glasgow, in 1757, he was so strongly opposed by the trading corporation that he was obliged to abandon his shop, and seek refuge and employment within the walls of the university. When the imposts were paid, permission was granted to enter upon a particular branch of trade ; but the new trader was warned that he must, under the penalty of additional payment, strictly confine himself within the limits of his craft.

New burgh settlers were expected to place themselves under the guidance of those who regulated the municipal concerns. A course of independence was dangerous. Calumny was a weapon always ready to assail the unyielding stranger. An evil report speedily gained ground when many were concerned in its propagation, and under its blighting influence the new settler generally fell. Old burgh politicians resisted every proposal for physical improvement. Innovators were not tolerated; they were deemed unfit for municipal employment. Those burgesses who sought to lodge their families in commodious dwellings were subjected to ridicule and insult.

Burgh magistrates rejoiced to see streets, lanes, sewers, and dust-heaps, preserved in the condition in which they remembered them in boyhood. With a feeling of affection they recollected the thistles which had sprung up in the streets since childhood, and they desired that the national symbol might be spared. The long grass of the causeway fed the burgh sheep. The boulder-stones which protruded in the main thoroughfares formed useful stepping-stones, when the intervening spaces were, after showers, converted into pools. The timber dwellings which bordered leading streets were combustible, but comfortably warm. The porches of lumbering tenements narrowed the thoroughfare, but they contained outside stories to upper floors, and concealed the jaw-hole. The latter was a somewhat inconvenient substitute for underground sewage; but it was less costly. Occasionally the water of the public wells gave forth an unpleasant odour, but a little whisky or a sprinkling of oatmeal was deemed a sufficient deodorizer. When dung-heaps were removed, and cesspools cleansed, the air was foul for a season; but the occasion was embraced for a pleasant trip into the country.

Police regulations were lamentably defective. Even in the capital, streets were unmarked by numbers till late in the eighteenth century. In 1702, a landed proprietor in Morayshire was, during a visit to Edinburgh, addressed by a correspondent in these terms :—

"For Mr. Archibald Dumbair, of Thundertane, to be left at Capt. Dunbair, entry chamber at the iron revel third storie below the Cross north end of the crose at Edin."

When the magistrates of Edinburgh had at length determined that every house in the city should be denoted by a number, William Glass, poet and house-painter, undertook to inscribe numerals on the houses of the Canongate, for the recompence of a glass of whisky for each numeral depicted by his brush.

Preservation of order at Edinburgh was entrusted to a body of red-haired Gael, denominated the Highland Guard. The minor burghs employed old pensioners as guardians of property. The municipal rulers of Stirling enjoined the inhabitants to watch by turns—two being expected to mount guard every evening. When the present writer entered on a ministerial office in this place in 1855, he was waited upon by an officer of the corporation with the message, that it was his turn to keep watch. He was somewhat disconcerted, since the following day was Sunday, when he had to conduct service. His anxiety was allayed by the assurance that a payment of two shillings would provide a substitute.

About the commencement of the present century there was a movement towards burghal reformation. The first crusade was against trees, which municipal authorities resolved to uproot from their streets and suburbs. Thousands of the monarchs of the forest perished by the woodman's axe. The noble limes and birches, which adorned St. Andrews in its leading thoroughfares, were hewn down. Many fine old trees at Glasgow were subjected to the hatchet. In 1816, the town council of Stirling sold the trees skirting their suburban streets, to a carpenter in the place. A neighbouring proprietor purchased the trees from the carpenter, and so preserved them from destruction. A poem of fourteen stanzas was addressed to the town council of Stirling, with reference to their ruthless intentions. The poet makes the trees offer a petition that they might be spared:—

O ye who in your hands have now
Power to condemn and power to save;
Need ye be told how oft to you
In early life we pleasure gave?

And ever and anon we've been,
To all who built beneath our shade,
A constant and a powerful screen
From eastern blasts that oft invade.