PREFACE

IN Scotland during the eighteenth century there were only two outstanding events which, after the Union, specially belong to its history-the Rebellion of '15 and the Rebellion of '45. Besides these rebellions, we find as State affairs of Scotland chiefly obscure intrigues of factions, Whig and Tory, Presbyterian and Jacobite; measures managed by leaders of Scottish business, who were servile followers of English ministries; manœuvres of Scots nobles and placemen who travel southwards on horseback or in coach to win favour with great statesmen at Westminster or courtiers at St. James's-figures not very real to us to-day as they flit across the stage, “transient and embarrassed phantoms." To the end of the century—when Henry Dundas was "uncrowned King" of Scotland, pulling every political wire, and making local magnates and voters in town and country obsequiously move like puppets at his will -political life in North Britain was virtually non-existent.

This book, however, does not treat of stirring and striking episodes such as the Rebellions, with their elements of high romance not unalloyed with dingy intrigue: for these a sketch would be too little, and here a history would be too much. Still less does it concern itself with the ways of politicians, who often mistook State craftiness for Statecraft, from the pettifogging schemers at the beginning of the century to the dictatorship and despotic party domination at the close: these

interested the country a little at that time, but they interest us very little to-day. The following pages treat of the social condition of the country-chiefly in the Lowlands—and the internal changes through which it passed during a hundred years, with details which the historian dismisses with impatience as unconsidered trifles marring the dignity of his theme and disturbing the flow of his narrative. Yet, after all, it is in the inner life of a community that its real history is to be found in the homes, and habits, and labours of the peasantry; in the modes, and manners, and thoughts of society; what the people believed and what they practised; how they farmed and how they traded; how the poor were relieved; how their children were taught, how their bodies were nourished, and how their souls were tended. On this last subject it may be thought that too much has been said-that the religious and ecclesiastical state of Scotland has been dealt with on a scale too large and disproportionate. It must, however, be remembered that such a part-too large and disproportionate-it also formed in the existence and concerns of the people. No doubt many of the religious ways and habits, the old-world theology, have long ago vanished, leaving only memories, humorous, pathetic, or bitter, behind them; curious convictions that once were charged with dangerous force in sectarian polemics are now cold and harmless, like exploded shells on an old battlefield. But it is impossible to understand the character and conduct of the Scottish people without knowing those bygone customs and beliefs which were once full of intense vitality. Nowhere were Church spirit so keen, Church influence so far-reaching, and Church affairs so intimate, as in Scotland.

Probably no period was so quietly eventful in shaping the fortunes and character of the country as the eighteenth century. Others are more distinguished by striking incidents, others are more full of the din and tumult and strife which arrest attention and are treated as crises, although they may neither stir the