The gradual influx of wealth and extension of commerce have
since united to render the present people of Scotland a class of beings
as different from their grandfathers as the existing English are from
those of Queen Elizabeth's time.
The political and economical effects of these changes have been traced by
Lord Selkirk with great precision and accuracy. But the change, though
steadily and rapidly progressive, has nevertheless been gradual; and,
like those who drift down the stream of a deep and smooth river, we are
not aware of the progress we have made until we fix our eye on the now
distant point from which we have been drifted. Such of the present
generation as can recollect the last twenty or twenty-five years of the
eighteenth century will be fully sensible of the truth of this statement;
especially if their acquaintance and connexions lay among those who in my
younger time were facetiously called 'folks of the old leaven,' who still
cherished a lingering, though hopeless, attachment to the house of
Stuart.
This race has now almost entirely vanished from the land, and with it,
doubtless, much absurd political prejudice; but also many living examples
of singular and disinterested attachment to the principles of loyalty
which they received from their fathers, and of old Scottish faith,
hospitality, worth, and honour.
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