Now that the Scottish people know that the Duke of Buccleuch finds time to inquire personally into the condition of the peasantry on his estates, no proprietor, however ancient his lineage and proud his name, will be excused who fails to go and do likewise, or who fails at least to acquaint himself with the condition of the labourers who cultivate his fields. Personal inquiry we would recommend, although it should not lead to the rendering of one cottage more comfortable than it was before. We recommend it for the proprietor’s own behoof. “The most certain softeners of a man’s moral skin, and sweeteners of his blood, are, I am sure, domestic intercourse in a happy marriage, and intercourse with the poor,” writes Arnold; and, as if he had felt the virtue flowing out of such intercourse, he repeats the thought thus in another place, “Prayer, and kindly intercourse with the poor, are the two great safeguards of spiritual life.” One-half the world does not know how the other half lives, and one-half of the bitternesses of human life arises from our not understanding one another. Little do the great ones of the earth know how much they lose by avoiding kindly acquaintance with poor and humble neighbours.

We know of no public meeting that has taken place in our time, where the speeches delivered possessed a higher moral value than those that fell from the speakers at the meeting of the 10th January last. The turbulent, disrupted, and gloomy condition of the manufacturing classes, rendered them admirably seasonable. They have shed a benignant influence over the agricultural community. They have awakened hopes that were growing faint, and fine old Scottish feelings that were dying out, and have proved a healing anodyne to a wound that was rankling in many a bosom. The opening speech of the noble chairman we have read more than once, and ever with renewed delight. Many an honest labourer has read it too, with glistening eye and joyful heart, and its perusal has prepared him for fighting more heroically the battle of his life. Some of the sentiments of the noble Duke we cannot withhold from our columns:—

“He thought it would not be disputed that, generally speaking, throughout Scotland, the habitations of these labourers were very defective, especially in those accommodations for comfort and delicacy. In former days the farm-servant was accommodated in the farmer’s house, where he took his meals, and so was under the moral control of his employers. But now the farm-labourer was put into a bothy, generally a most wretched place to live in, and often the worst building on the farm. He could not blink the question involved in the subject. They had not come there to bandy compliments to one another, but to speak the truth. It might be said to him and those who came there to find fault with the present system: You ought to come with clean hands, and be able to say that all the bothies on your estate were such as they ought to be. He confessed with shame that he could show as bad specimens on his property as could be found in Scotland. He would not conceal it that the condition of many of the cottages on his estate was as bad as could be. How this state of things had arisen it was not difficult to see.... He examined a number of their cottages himself, and found many of them quite in a falling-down state. In one of them, when he took a box-bed out of it, down came the roof. Such things would be found not so very uncommon if these cottages were looked into. Then what an evil effect such houses had upon the moral feelings of those who occupied them! Many of the persons who lived in them were highly educated, and it might well be conceived that a person of refinement living in a place fit for a pig would be discontented, as well as unhappy. How could they expect, when they saw men, women, and children all living and sleeping in one apartment, that they could be otherwise than demoralised? Could they wonder that all their delicacy of feeling was destroyed? Mothers had said to him, how could they bring up their daughters with respectability when there was not that separation of rooms which there ought to be? Then there was a great disinclination on the part of the tenantry to the landlord taking these cottages into his hand. They said they must have every single thing under their own control. It was all very well for them to say that as regarded the lodgment of their domestic and special farm-servants, but it did not follow that it was absolutely necessary that all the cottages of the agricultural labourers should belong to the farmer. He did not think that it was right that the farm-labourer should be bound down to work for one man only. But the person who really benefited by the landlord taking the cottage into his own hands was the farm-labourer himself; and he had seen the moral effect produced by providing better houses for this class of labourers, in a quarter where thieving and poaching had formerly been the disgrace of the people; but since their houses were improved, there was a great and beneficial reformation in these respects. It was really gratifying to see the change which took place in the feelings of these people towards their landlord, when they knew he was taking an interest in their welfare. Here, when he passed, they showed they regarded him as their friend, and were not filled with unpleasant suspicions about him.”

The gems in the ducal coronet never emitted a tenderer or more fascinating ray than when its noble owner entered the lowly cottage on his mission of kindness, and since the preceding sentiments were spoken, we believe that from many a Scottish heart the fervent prayer has been sent to heaven’s gate, that “the good Buccleuch” may long be spared to his country.

ALEXANDER SMITH’S POEMS.[[7]]

Some time ago a volume of poems appeared, over which there arose a great roar of critical battle, like the conflict over the dead Valerius, when “Titus pulled him by the foot, and Aulus by the head.” Many hailed the author as a true poet, and prophesied his coming greatness; others fastened on obvious defects, and moused the book like Snug the joiner tearing Thisbe’s mantle in his character of lion. Now that the hubbub has subsided, our still small voice may be heard.

The poet in question has at once deprecated and defied criticism in a sonnet, (p. 232).

“There have been vast displays of critic wit

O’er those who vainly flutter feeble wings,

Nor rise an inch ’bove ground,—weak poetlings!