these characters they have such great numbers, that few of them know the one half; they not making use of four and twenty letters to make words, as is used here. This way of the Chinese was not heard of, till within these very few years.

It is well known of the Turks, that they have not the learning, the art in trades, or war, as their neighbours the Germans; and the chief reason is, they have not printing among them, which they will not suffer; for fear, as is thought, it should undermine their false religion, and plant Christianity in its stead.

SCOTLAND CHARACTERISED:

IN A

LETTER WRITTEN TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN,

TO DISSUADE HIM FROM AN INTENDED JOURNEY THITHER.

Scotica si diris devotum, terra tulisset
Cainum; non alias exul peragraverat oras.
Ipsa suis contenta malis: Non indiga pestis
Externa: Infensi satiasse numinis iras.

Cleaveland translated.

By the Author of 'The Trip to North Wales.' 1701. Folio. Containing four Pages.

IT T was not without the greatest surprise in the world, that I heard, from my Lady your mother, your intentions led you to our neighbouring kingdom of Scotland, to perfect and give the grace-stroke to that very liberal education, you have so signally improved in England. I confess, it is very irksome, to some spirits, to be contradicted and thwarted in either their expressions, or designs and they do, with such an unpersuadable obstinacy, cherish their own ideas, that you might as well expect grapes from a thistle, as to make them change their party, though upon the most demonstrative arguments, that can be produced. But I hope better things of you; and do not in the least doubt, but you are so much reason's humble servant, that, if I convince you this ramble of yours will neither be for your credit, pleasure, nor advantage (which I shall make the topicks of my discourse) you will even stay where you are, and not hazard three things so very precious to all rational creatures; and, if you meet with any harsh, rugged expressions in this epistle, I hope you will do me the justice to believe, that it was nothing, but a grateful sense of my own obligations, and a

hearty desire of your welfare, that extorted them from me. And let so much suffice, by way of preface.

You are now advanced to those years, in which, if ever, men begin to consider and propose some end to themselves in what they do. But, under favour, if, by going into Scotland, you imagine to improve your intellect, you are as wide of your purpose, as if you should take West-Chester in your way from London to Dover; and, before I will believe, that ever any man, that has lived a gentleman, or fellowcommoner, in either of our two Universities, and a little tasted of the education of an inn of court (as you have done) can ampliate his understanding by grazing in the Caledonian forest, I will subscribe to the calling in of the Jews, and the Pope's being turned protestant.

I will not deny, but Scotland has formerly given very eminent scholars to the world; nay, I will go further, there are no finer gentlemen in the world, than that natiou can justly boast of; but then they are such as have travelled, and are indebted to other countries for those accomplishments that render them so esteemed, their own affording only pedantry, poverty, brutality, and hypocrisy.

To make this evident, give me leave a little to pursue my proposed method: And here pleasure (which influences most people, young especially, that care not much to look forwards) leads the van. Now, Sir, you would take him for a very unaccountable man, that should pretend to regale bis nose with asa fætida, or, in the heat of summer, take sanctuary in a bagnio, for coldness; and yet you do the same thing in effect, when you make the tour of Scotland for diversion.

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For the charms of conversation (which, considering man as a sociable creature, are most universally desired) it may be presumed, Nebuchadnezzar, when turned out a grasing, had full as eligible companions, as you are like to meet with; and you might, with as much safety, enter into a league of friendship with a cannibal, who would upon the first opportunity eat you up, as with a Scotchman ; for what Sir John Chardin says of the Mingrelians, may be truly applied to them, That they are perfidy itself. "The most sacred ties, as oaths and the like, are snapped asunder by them with as much ease, as the new cords were by Sampson. And there is nothing amongst them, to their very kings (of which the last. age afforded us a very memorable example) that is not vendible. Civility is not so much as known in the idea amongst that proverbially clownish people. The conscience of a custom-house officer, the integrity of a knight of the post, the modesty of a common prostitute, and the courage of a town-bully amount to full as much.

Their women are, if possible, yet worse than the men, and carry no temptations, but what have at hand suitable antidotes; and you must be qualified for the embraces of a Succubus, before you can break the seventh, or one article of the tenth commandment here. The skin of their faces looks like vellum; and a good Orientalist

might easily spy out the Arabick alphabet between their Eye-brows. Their legs resemble mill-posts, both for shape, bigness, and strength; their hair is like that of an overgrown hostess; their gait like a Muscovian duck's; and their fingers strut out with the itch, like so many country justices going to keep a petty sessions. Their voice is like thunder, and will as effectually sowre all the milk in a dairy, or beer in a cellar, as forty drums beating a preparative. It is a very common thing for a woman of quality to say to her footman, Andrew, take a fast gripe of my a- and help me over the

stile.'

They pretend to be descended from one Madam Scota, daughter to King Pharaoh; but the best proof, they give of it, is their bringing two of the plagues of Egypt along with them, viz. lice and the itch; which they have intailed upon their posterity ever

since.

Some are of opinion, that, when the Devil shewed our Saviour the kingdoms of the earth, he laid his thumb upon Scotland, and that for a twofold reason: First, because it was not like to be any temptation. Next, being part of his mother's jointure, he could not dispose of it during her life.

For their cookery and bedding, they are the antipodes of all cleanly folks. Can you like to breakfast upon steen bannock? (An oaten cake, often baked upon my hostess's warm wemb.) Or drink ropy ale, that is full as palpable, as ever the Egyptian darkness was? Would it please you to see a joint of meat ready to run away from you? And yet such must be your entertainment there.

In Edinburgh, the capital city, whither you are going, they have not a private forica; but, as their houses, which are incredibly high, consist of eight or ten distinct families, each of which possesses an intire floor, so, at every stair's-head, you may see a great tub, called a cogue, that is the receptacle-general of the nastiness of a whole family; for all disembogue here promiscuously, both males and females, masters and mistresses, with their servants, without the least restraint of modesty or shame. When this is competently full, two lusty fellows, by the help of a cowl-staff, carry it by night to a window, and, after crying, Geud peeple, leuk to yar selles there,' out they throw it; he, that comes by, has great cause to bless his stars, if he comes off with piss. It may be, at high noon, and in the principal street, you shall meet a tattered wretch, with a monstrous cloke, and a close-stool under it, bawling out, 'Wha wants me ?' For a half-penny you may be accommodated, and covered, whilst you are so.

6

Trees are great rarities: This made Sir Anthony Weldon, who knew the country very well, say, That, had Christ lived there, and been betrayed, as most certainly he would have been, if he had lived there, Judas might sooner have found the grace of repentance, than a tree to hang himself on.' The high-street in Edinburgh, about three quarters of a mile long, is very fit, by reason of its breadth, for a triumph, from the Castle to Holy-rood

house; but the rest of the lanes, as they call them, are absolutely common-sewers, which make the city look like a comb.

No wonder, then, if the Scots, who are not unfily resembled to a crepitus ventris, once Anglified, care not for returning to their native country; and yet, as the French refugees take all occasions to extol their monarch, his armies, palaces, &c. so these gentlemen, though in England, cannot forbear to magnify their own 'gude land.' He is happy, that believes their report, without going thither to refute it.

If you call to have your sheets aired, forty to one, but the wench, in great civility, proffers to uncase, and come into bed to you. I was much surprised at my landlady's asking me one night, If my cods lay right? But I quickly cleared her from any ill meaning, when I understood, it is their name for the pillows.

You shall commonly hear a beggarly Scot, whose every meal is a stratagem, here in England, tell you of his felicities there, and how he used to walk about his father's perk, with a lacquey at his heels; but you must not immediately conceive too extraordinary an opinion of his grandeur; for, upon inquiry how many deer his father had in his perk, the truth will out, though to shame both Scot and Devil, That his father kept no deer in his perk, and that they call an inclosure a perk, in his country.' A Scotch laird, having got boosy, and mounted upon a mole-hill to survey his large demeans, asked his man, If he knew a greater lord than himself? He was told, Yes, viz. the Lord Jehovah.' Says he, 'Ise neer heard of that Lord, but get ye to him, and will him immediately to surrender all to me, or Ise pull him out by the lugs.' The servant, to honour his master's pride, seems to do so, and, upon his return, tells him he need not use such violent methods, it was but ask, and he might have his kingdom. Well, replies my gentleman, since he be so civil, deel take me, if ever I, or any of mine, set our foot where he's got to do.'

But, Sir, if you have the least regard to your own, or your country's reputation, you will never go thither to feed upon husks with swine, especially since you may have bread enough, and that of the finest sort, in our own universities. In a word, a Padua physician, a Salamanca doctor of divinity, and a Scotch master of arts, are three animals sunk below contempt, and not to be paralleled in the universe.

In the last place, for any advantage you are like to get, 1 dare be bold to say, you might hope for as much in one of those Lithuanian academies Dr. Crull speaks of, that are erected for the edu cation of bears and other wild beasts.

Their colleges are neither, for learning, libraries, learned men, revenues, or structure, any more to be compared to ours, than a dancing-master's kit to a bass-viol, or a Welch vicarage to St. Paul's cathedral.

None but the principal and professors lodge within the walls at Edinburgh, to which you are going (I meddle not with St. Andrew's, Glascow, or Aberdeen, because I never saw them, and

hardly know how to believe the relations of those that have) so that you must undavoidably take up in the town with some fauce loon, who will stick to you as close as the ivy does to the oak, and for the same reason too, to draw away your sap from you. The scholars go like sword-men, and never can be called the gens togata, till they are laureated, i. e. take their degrees of masters of arts, which is constantly done at four years standing, and not unfrequentiy, especially if there be money in the case, sooner; then they oblige you with a most ample diploma, written in an effeminate sort of Latin, and as fulsome as a mountebank's panegyrick on his own balsam, or wonder-working Panacea: The scope of it is to satisfy your friends, to whom returning, that you have spent much money, travelled many miles, endured great hardships, and taken extraordinary pains, to very little purpose.

This college is divided into five distinct classes: Each of these has a several regent, who, from nine till twelve in the morning, and from two till five in the afternoon, shall entertain you with a lecture as jejune as a homily, but as terrible for length, as an old parliament fast; and they, you know, were reckoned dreadful enough. The only degree they confer, is that of master of arts; Dr. Rule, the present principal, is doctor of medicine, though a divine. They have two pretty tolerable philosophers, one an Aristotelian, the other a disciple of Cartes; but not a good mathematician, or sound Grecian, in their whole college. For their divinity, it is so so. They are intirely of the presbyterian cut, and made more haste to throw out bishops, than the Israelites did of old to expel the Canaanites. Theft, as being one of their liberal sciences, is rather cherished than punished: But adulterers and fornicators are miserably persecuted by them. If they detect a lady of pleasure, they oblige her, publickly, in the time of divine wor-hip, to mount a theatre of ignominy, called, forsooth, the stool of repentance, to the end all the geude brethren may know where to have a whore. They are professed foes to all copy-hold tenures in divinity, and will much rather preach extempore nonsense, than use notes In the time of King James I. soon after his coming into England, one of his own country thus accosted him, Sir,' says he, I am sorry to see your Majesty so dealt with by your prelatical tantivies, as you are: Alas! they can neither preach, nor pray, but by a beuk; if your Majesty will please to hear me, Ise doe bath without.' And so be did, till the King told him, He preached and prayed, as if he had never leuked in a beuk in his whole life.'

In the College library, they keep Buchanan's scull; however the lining be wanting, which had, methought, a pretty distich upon it: The first line I have forgot, but the second was thus:

Et decus es tumulo jam, Buchanane, tuo.

But I must correct myself. I intended only a letter, but have insensibly swelled it to the dimensions of a treatise. I will conclude my observations of the country with one short, and true, story. The

VOL. X.

Ll