France is the land of sober common-sense,
And Spain of intellectual eminence.
In Russia there are no such things as chains;
Supreme at Rome enlightened reason reigns.
Unbounded liberty is Austria’s boast,
And iron Prussia is as free—almost.
America, that stationary clime,
Boasts of tradition and the olden time.
England, the versatile and gay,
Rejoices in theatrical display.
The sons of Scotia are impulsive, rash,
Infirm of purpose, prodigal of cash.
But Paddy——
But, indeed, the rest is too scandalous for publication.
The most marked feature of the Scottish national character is perhaps an engaging modesty that forbids me to dwell on the achievements of a small country’s thin population, who have written so many names so widely over the world. But it must be admitted how the King of Great Britain sits on his throne in virtue of the Scottish blood that exalted a “wee bit German lairdie.” Our men of light and leading are naturally Scotsmen, the leaders of both parties in the House of Commons, for instance. Since Disraeli—himself sprung from the Chosen People of the old Dispensation—Lord Salisbury was our only Premier not a Scotsman. Both the present Archbishops of the Anglican Church come from Presbyterian Scotland. The heads of other professions in England usually are or ought to be Scotsmen. The United States Constitution seems to require an amendment permitting the President to be a born Scot; but such names as Adams, Polk, Scott, Grant, McClellan, and McKinley have their significance in the history of that country, while in Canada, of course, Mac has come to mean much what Pharaoh did in Egypt. It is believed that no Scotsman has as yet been Pope; but there appears a sad falling away in the Catholic Church since its earliest Fathers were well known as sound Presbyterians. The first man mentioned in the Bible was certainly a Scot, though English jealousy seeks to disguise him as James I. Your “beggarly Scot” has the Apostles as accomplices in what Englishmen look on as his worst sin, a vice of
poverty which, in the fulness of time, he begins to live down. Both Major and Minor Prophets deal with their Ahabs and Jezebels much in the tone of John Knox. A legend, not lightly to be despised, makes our ancestress Scota, Pharaoh’s daughter; but I do not insist on a possible descent from the lost Tribes of Israel. Noah is recorded as the first Covenanter. Cain and Abel appear to have started the feud of Highlander and Lowlander. Father Adam is certainly understood to have worn the kilt. The Royal Scots claim to have furnished the guard over the Garden of Eden, in which case unpleasing questions are suggested as to the duties of the Black Watch at that epoch. The name of Eden was at one time held to fix the site of Paradise in the East Neuk of Fife; but the higher criticism inclines to Glasgow Green. In the south of Lanark, indeed, are four streams that have yielded gold; but they compass a country more abounding in lead, and the climate seems not congenial to fruit trees. “I confess, my brethren,” said the controversial divine, “that there is a difficulty here; but let us look it boldly in the face, and pass on.”
The antiquities of Stirling contrast with the modern trimness of its neighbour, the Bridge of Allan, lying at the foot of the Ochils two or three miles off, a Leamington to the Scottish Warwick, the tramway between them passing the hill on which, to humble southron tourists, Professor Blackie and other ardent patriots reared that tall Wallace Monument whose interior makes a Walhalla of memorials to eminent Scotsmen like Carlyle and Gladstone. Bridge of Allan is a place of mills and bleach works, and of resort for its Spa of saline water, recommended, too, by its repute for a mild spring climate, rare in the north. The “Bridge,” which we have so often in Scottish place-names, points to a time when bridges were not matters of course; as in the Highlands we shall find “Boats” recording a more backward stage of ferries. This bridge spans the wooded “banks of Allan Water,” up which a pleasant path leads one to Dunblane, with the Ochil moorlands for its background.