] Upon these passions it
is no doubt true that the state of manners and laws casts a necessary
colouring; but the bearings, to use the language of heraldry, remain the
same, though the tincture may be not only different, but opposed in
strong contradistinction. The wrath of our ancestors, for example, was
coloured gules; it broke forth in acts of open and sanguinary violence
against the objects of its fury. Our malignant feelings, which must seek
gratification through more indirect channels, and undermine the obstacles
which they cannot openly bear down, may be rather said to be tinctured
sable. But the deep-ruling impulse is the same in both cases; and the
proud peer, who can now only ruin his neighbour according to law, by
protracted suits, is the genuine descendant of the baron who wrapped the
castle of his competitor in flames, and knocked him on the head as he
endeavoured to escape from the conflagration. It is from the great book
of Nature, the same through a thousand editions, whether of black-letter,
or wire-wove and hot-pressed, that I have venturously essayed to read a
chapter to the public. Some favourable opportunities of contrast have
been afforded me by the state of society in the northern part of the
island at the period of my history, and may serve at once to vary and to
illustrate the moral lessons, which I would willingly consider as the
most important part of my plan; although I am sensible how short these
will fall of their aim if I shall be found unable to mix them with
amusement--a task not quite so easy in this critical generation as it was
'Sixty Years Since.
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