BOOK III,

nuensis. His disquisitions have much the air of a pleading or an oration: he generally speaks in the first person: he makes frequent apostrophes, as an orator to his audience; appeals to the judgment or the feelings of his reader; and, from time to time, arouses him by a direct call upon his attention, as if he suspected it to be wandering. He frequently supposes an antagonist pleading against him, and supporting with ingenuity the opposite side of the dispute: he puts a home question; presses a point conceded by his opponent; allows the weight of some of his arguments; corrects mistakes, as scorning to take an unfair advantage; but never fails in the end to claim a complete victory*. This gives a sort of dramatic interest to his reasonings, which, even when employed on the most abstruse subjects, are seldom apt to fatigue his readers; but convey profound instruction, without the formality and the dryness of a professed lecture. -On the whole, if we cannot, consistently with impartial criticism, admit, that Lord Kames is ei

ther

*To do my antagonist all justice, I grant."—" But in a matter of so great "importance, I cannot rest satisfied with a successful defence; I aim at a "complete victory."-" To relieve myself from the languid uniformity of a "continued defence, I will on this occasion change hands, and try my for"tune in making an attack."-" I come now to the point, by putting a plain. "question."-". But not satisfied with reducing my opponent to this dilemma, "I undertake to prove, though not incumbent on me."-" Will my opponent 4 now have the assurance to affirm," &c.-Essays on the Principles of Morality, passim.

ther an elegant, a pure, or a correct writer, we must allow that his composition is always clear and perspicuous, announcing his meaning with precision, simple in its structure, aiming at no ambitious ornaments; and that his manner possesses an agreeable animation and earnestness, which fixes the attention of the reader, while it convinces him that the Author speaks from a firm persuasion of the truth of the doctrines he inculcates.

CHAP. VI.

ليسم

OF THE

LIFE AND WRITINGS

OF

LORD KAMES.

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER I.

Lord Kames's agricultural pursuits.-Picture of the state of Scotland by Fletcher of Salton:-His projected reforms.— Obstacles to the improvement of Agriculture.-Earliest attempts towards its advancement.-Effects of the Rebellion in 1745.-Plans of the Commissioners for the Annexeď Estates.-Wight's Agricultural Surveys.-Plan of a Board of Agriculture.-Lord Kames's Gentleman Farmer.-Character of that Work.-Observations concerning Planting.-Letters from Sir John Pringle to Lord Kames.

Ir has been already remarked, that among those objects of general utility to which the patriotic mind of Lord KAMES was more particularly directed, there was none which occu

CHAP. I.

Lord Kames' agricultural pursuits.

BOOK IV.

Picture of the State of Scotland by Fletcher of Salton.

pied a greater share of his attention than the improvement of the agriculture of his native country.

2

When we look back to the state of Scotland about a century ago, and observe the extraordinary opinions entertained at that time even by men of the most enlightened 'understanding, with respect to fundamental principles of rural economy, we shall cease to wonder at the slow progress of agriculture, which not only found its usual obstacles in the natural indolence and prejudices of the peasantry, but in the erroneous ideas of the landholders with regard to their subtarog ot stantial interest.

In the period to which I allude, ANDREW FLETCHER OF SALTON, a man of an ardent and virtuous mind, and of a truly patriotic spirit, has drawn a picture of the state of Scotland, which, if it did not find its evidence both in the historical records, and in the laws of the country, would at this day pass for the fiction of a diseased imagination. He speaks of a fifth part of the population of Scotland as in the state of actual mendicants, begging alms from door to door, and of these a great proportion dying yearly from absolute want of a hundred thousand gipsies, or vagabonds, living without regard to any laws human or divine, and seeking their subsistence by violence, rapine and murder; of one-half of the land-property of the kingdom," possessed by a people "who are all gentlemen, only because they will not work;

and