tory of the vulgar literature of Scotland has been long and is unquestionably still a desideratum; for certainly nothing could tend to throw so much light on the manners and tastes of the great body of the people as such a work." Twenty years have elapsed since the publication of "Glasgow and its Clubs," and up to this writing no attempt has been made to fill the long-felt gap in the national literature of Scotland, which so moved the sympathies of Sir Walter Scott, Motherwell, and Dr. Strang.

4. Professed history is too frequently confined to a record of the more striking results of the passions and virtues of eminent personages, and the transactions of a nation in its collective capacity-to the neglect of the nice shades of moral and social progress, the private life of the dramatis personæ, and, of course, of the great public-whose mode of living, thoughts, loves, sorrows, joys, hopes, and fears were, until lately, considered to be unworthy the notice of the historian. And yet what is thought, and said, and felt is as real history, and as important to be known, as that which

is visibly done by man to man. It is impossible thoroughly to understand the history of Scotland, or the character of her people during the last century, without studying these vulgar, but graphic and intensely Scottish, productions under review. For many years they constituted the chief and universal literature of old and young, among the lower and agricultural middle classes, throughout the lowlands; and in them we have reflected the mind, superstitions, customs, and language of the people who read them, more accurately and vividly than in the stately pages of Robertson or of Hume. In every point of view the Chapbook is full of interest. It guides us to the manners and customs of an age gone by; it reveals to us the popular mind and feelings more surely and sharply than the most elaborate treatise; its incidents are strongly felt and forcibly described; its images, those which Nature suggests, not the combinations of refined art: and the customs, adventures, and superstitions narrated, are clothed in the rude, simple, energetic and nervous language of a half-unlettered people.

They originated in the necessities of an age just sufficiently educated to feel the want of cheap literature, and cut off by the puritanical and traditional austerities of the clergy and people, from popular amusements and sports. They filled the place now occupied by cheap concerts, lectures, newspapers, and the shoal of serial publications which cater for the public taste. But, apart from their historical value, they claim for themselves a distinct and unique place in literature, for their intrinsic and literary merits. It has been too much the fashion to regard rough, idyllic sketches like Jockie and Maggie's Courtship, as rude, illiterate productions, possessing a considerable share of humour, but interesting chiefly for their grossness and rarity. It will be shown by-and-by that they are much more and much other than this; that the most characteristic of them are written with extraordinary vigour, humour, and dramatic skill: and are entitled to be ranked with such classical masterpieces as the humorous narratives in the Canterbury Tales. But before proceeding to trace their history and growth, and to

criticise in detail their merits and defects, it will be necessary briefly to sketch the political, literary, and domestic features of the age, on which the chap-books throw so strong and truthful a light.

§ 5. On the 15th of November, 1688day ever memorable in the annals of Britain. -William, Prince of Orange, landed with his army in England, to take possession of the throne made vacant by that weakheaded bigot, James: and on the eleventh of April, 1689, William and Mary were crowned at London, and proclaimed at Edinburgh. Three months later, Prelacy was officially abolished, and the Presbyterian form of Church government which now exists established in its stead. At the same time, the parochial system of schools, concerning which several tentative enactments had been previously passed, was finally settled. These, and other measures, went some way to consolidate the hold of the new sovereigns on the affections of the Scottish nation; and, if they had been left to work out their results in peace, would probably have put an end to the disaffection and broils which, for many

years afterward, kept the country in a continual state of fermentation. But, unfortunately, the new Government soon turned its back on Scotland; intent only on the depression of France, and the overthrow of the Roman Catholic interest in Europe. This might have passed unnoticed by the public, if it had not been for the stupendous bungling and wickedness of William's subordinates, which brought about the tragedy of Glencoe, on the 13th of February, 1692. Scarcely had the nation recovered from the shock occasioned by this atrocity, when it was a second time overwhelmed, by the disastrous Darien expedition; the collapse of which was mainly owing to the unjust and short-sighted jealousy and opposition of the English Government. A great famine, which laid waste the country about the same time, aggravated the already embittered feelings of the people; which were further intensified by the ratification of the Act of Union in February, 1707, (Queen Anne being then on the throne,) in direct and flagrant opposition to the expressed wishes of the whole Scottish nation. This,