The loyalty that only muttered under the stern rule that was over now spoke fairly out. It was in November 1659 that Monk began his renowned march to London. For all the famed inscrutability of his character, the Scots evidently knew the errand on which he had gone. There was so good an understanding between them that he could withdraw the army from their neighbourhood. He called together an assembly of representative men from the counties, who so far promoted his undertaking, whatever it might be, that they aided him with a considerable sum of money, which might either be called an anticipation of the taxes to come or an advance on their security. At their meeting, whatever was spoken beyond compliments and expressions of good-fellowship, referred to the support of the Parliamentary authority in each country. The general knew the opinion of the men he was dealing with ; he accepted of co-operation and aid from them; he was able to do what they desired, and the bargain was as complete as a bargain without words can be. Had Monk done otherwise than as he did, he would certainly have incurred a charge of dissimulation or apostasy.

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CHAPTER LXXVI.

SOCIAL PROGRESS FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE RESTORATION.

LITERATURE-DECAY OF LATIN LITERATURE-PASSES FROM A LIVING TO A DEAD LANGUAGE RISE OF VERNACULAR LITERATURE -POETRY ALEXANDER HUME DRUMMOND-SIR ROBERT AYTON -BALLAD LITERATURE- SONGS NATIONAL MUSIC- SCIENCE NAPIER OF MERCHISTON-GREGORY-ART-JAMESON THE PAINTER -FATE OF ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE-BARONIAL AND STREET ARCHITECTURE-PROGRESS OF WEALTH-CONDITION OF THE TOWNS NOTICES OF SCOTLAND BY VISITORS THE MORALITY OF THE PEOPLE-THE SUPERSTITIONS AS THE DARK SIDE OF THE SOCIAL SYSTEM MALIGNANT INFLUENCE OF BELIEF IN WITCHCRAFTDIABOLICAL POSSESSIONS.

HAVING reached a period of calm, with the consciousness that fresh troubles will speedily demand exclusive attention, the opportunity is suitable for a retrospect on the social conditions and fluctuations attending a hundred years of the country's history.1

The great impulse to literature and learning accompanying the Reformation had not yet expired, though in

1 It is sometimes said that the history of a country is imperfectly written if it do not in the narrative reveal the social condition of the people brought forward to act upon its stage. This may be so, but most ordinary narrators are apt to feel that there are characteristics of a people too placid and leisurely in their growth to be easily put into companionship with others born of violence, fanaticism, or craft. At all events, if there are morsels which the skill of an author is insufficient to weave into his narrative, the best he can do is to stop at a halting-place and pick them up.

the stormy atmosphere it had lived in for fifty years it was evidently dwindling towards extinction. Yet even among the men foremost in the acrid discussions that have passed before us, were many who had a name far beyond their own country in the theological or polemical literature of the day, and who published the results of their labours abroad in the language which still made the learned of all Europe kin to each other. Among these were David Calderwood the historian, John Broun, commonly known as "Broun of Wamphray," Samuel Rutherford, David Dickson, and Robert Baillie, with whom we have had many opportunities of communing.1 The cousin to whom he wrote the letter cited below-William Spang-pro

1 It is pleasant to find Baillie, in the hour of his darkest depression from the fate of his beloved Church, finding relief in the republic of foreign letters. To Middelburg he writes, desiring his cousin Spang, a minister there, to send him some morsels of periodical literature written in French, but published in Holland, where it evaded the censorship. And then: "I pray you, in your first to Voetius, remember my hearty service to him for his kind and prolix answer to my letter. Try if he has any return either from Buxtorf or Golius about my motion to them: we all long for a new enlarged edition of the Bibliothek, and a third volume of his Theses. I am informed that there is no man fitter to draw a philosophic cursus than his own son; will you try if he can be persuaded to it, who now is in by for any service? What is Heidanus for a man? What has come of Morus and Blondell? Is there no man who after Spanheim does mind the controversy with Amiraud? As long since I desired you to gather the adversarie pieces of Voetius and Maresius, and send them to uss-do it yet. What is my good friend Apollonius doing? Is there no more of Bochartus' or Henricus' Philippus come out? That the more willingly you may give me an account of all this, behold I am at the labour to let you know how all our affairs stand here.

"To myself the Lord is still very good, continuing my health, wealth, credit, welfare of all my six children, assistance in every part of my calling; blessed be His name."-Letters, &c., iii. 311. But it was not well with his Zion. After having beheld triumph after triumph until he grew bewildered with success, all was now subdued to the iron rule of the Commonwealth. In viewing the public side of such a man in his brawling assemblies and perilous politics, and turning to his studies and his domestic peace, we see how well a mind stored with intellectual wealth is endowed with resources against the calamities of the times. His correspondents, though their works now rest very peacefully on the book-shelves, were noted divines in their day-chiefly in the sources of study supplied from Oriental literature.

vided the sympathisers in the Netherlands with a history of the recent transactions in Scotland, conveyed to them in the language of all scholars.1

Among other Presbyterian divines whose writings are limited to their own vernacular were men with eminent intellectual qualities; such was the great John Welch who married Knox's daughter. Though he wrote in his own language, he threw himself into the midst of the fundamental contests between the old Church and the new; and he must have been an accomplished linguist, since he ministered for some time as a Huguenot pastor in France. There were John Weems of Lathoker, Robert Bruce, James Durham, James Guthrie, the hero and martyr of the Remonstrants, John Row, and George Gillespie, the "hammer of the Malignants." 2 There was eminent over all Alexander Henderson, selected for the distinction of debating the great question of the day with the king.

These men all belonged to a religious community frequently oscillating between triumph and defeat—a community of many transitions and interminable contests. Among religious bodies of so restless a temperament the trumpet is frequently and loudly blown, and men are famous who but for adventitious conditions would have

1 'Rerum Nuper in Regno Scotia Gestarum Historia, &c., per Irinæum Philalethen Eleutherium,' Dantzic, 1641. This is apt to be confounded with a little book called 'Motuum Britannicorum verax Cushi ex ipsis Joabi et oculati testis prototypis totus translatus.' I have not been able to discover the origin of this book. It is clear, from the abundance of its local information, that the Joab and eyewitness by whom either it was written or its chief materials supplied, were in Scotland.

2 Of Gillespie Wodrow says: "He was one of the great men that had a chief hand in penning our most excellent Confession of Faith and Catechisms. He was a most grave and bold man, and had a most wonderful gift given him for disputing and arguing. The end of a dispute held by him with some of the promoters of the Engagement was that "Glencairn said, 'There is no standing before this great and mighty man.' He was called Malleus Malignantium; and Mr Baillie, writing to some in this Church against Mr George Gillespie, said, 'He was truly an ornament to our Church and nation."". Analecta, iii. III.

been obscure. But whether it were from the fruitful impulse of this restlessness or not, it is certain that soon after the Reformation and down to the Restoration there was a marked access of intellect and zealous scholarship among the Presbyterian clergy of Scotland; and the feature seems the more worthy of note, that in the afterages, whether in depression or in triumph, the same Church became intellectually barren.

The Episcopal Church was not without its literary ornaments. Among these we may count Archbishop Spottiswood, and, more eminent as scholars, the two Forbeses of Aberdeen, Patrick the Bishop, and his son John, who succeeded him as laird of Corse. He wrote many solid works on religious and ecclesiastical matters, acceptable to the ecclesiastical critics of Holland, where an edition of his collected works was published after his death. There was Leighton, destined for a high place in religious literature, and Alexander Ross, a man of various accomplishments and powers somewhat eccentrically employed.

The foreign intellectual market continued to be abundantly supplied from Scotland.1 The Latin language, as a vehicle of literature and teaching, lingered longer in Scotland than in England, for various obvious reasons. Until the Scot ambitious of an audience could address his neighbours of England as well as his own countrymen, he spoke in these to a narrow audience. With Latin he had the educated men of all the world to speak to. The use

of the language had become so much a nature, that one sometimes finds a Scots scholar, when laboriously endeavouring to express his meaning in not too provincial vernacular, relieving himself by relapsing into the familiar Latin.

But as the use of the vernacular increased, the Latin degenerated by a process of stiffening. As it dropped out of living use by the great community of scholars, it came at last to be the dead language it is now called, and

1 For notices of the learned Scots who became distinguished on the Continent the author refers to his 'Scot Abroad,' vol. ii.