the middle of the seventeenth, the politer studies were very diligently
pursued. The Latin poetry of _Deliciae Poetarum Scotorum_ would have
done honour to any nation, at least till the publication of _May's
Supplement_ the English had very little to oppose.

Yet men thus ingenious and inquisitive were content to live in total
ignorance of the trades by which human wants are supplied, and to supply
them by the grossest means. Till the Union made them acquainted with
English manners, the culture of their lands was unskilful, and their
domestick life unformed; their tables were coarse as the feasts of
Eskimeaux, and their houses filthy as the cottages of Hottentots.

Since they have known that their condition was capable of improvement,
their progress in useful knowledge has been rapid and uniform. What
remains to be done they will quickly do, and then wonder, like me, why
that which was so necessary and so easy was so long delayed. But they
must be for ever content to owe to the English that elegance and culture,
which, if they had been vigilant and active, perhaps the English might
have owed to them.

Here the appearance of life began to alter. I had seen a few women with
plaids at Aberdeen; but at Inverness the Highland manners are common.
There is I think a kirk, in which only the Erse language is used. There
is likewise an English chapel, but meanly built, where on Sunday we saw a
very decent congregation.

We were now to bid farewel to the luxury of travelling, and to enter a
country upon which perhaps no wheel has ever rolled. We could indeed
have used our post-chaise one day longer, along the military road to Fort
Augustus, but we could have hired no horses beyond Inverness, and we were