BOOKS.

THE DUKE OF ARGYLL ON SCOTLAND.* Tins work is not without faults of style and of thought. Occa- sionally we seem to catch "that blessed word 'Mesopotamia in the pulpitrush of some of its more impassioned or mystically Celtic passages. The Duke of Argyll is prone, too, to empha- sise his thinking by means of capital letters ; as used by him, they are nearly as offensive to the eye as italics, and are even more grotesque. All through his two volumes, moreover, he figures rather as the ardent champion of certain political, historical, and economical ideas, than as the impartial historian, much lees the historical artist that the title of his book would seem to imply that he is. Above all, if the Doke cannot be quite said to have Mr. Henry George on the brain, he evidently gives too much importance, not only in his book but in his heart, to the Mahdi of political economy. When all this is conceded, however, it must be allowed that Scotland as it Was, and as it Is, is the most interesting contribution to the history of Scottish civilisation—perhaps we should rather say, to the philo- sophy of Scottish history—that has been published since the conclusion of Dr. Hill Burton's history. No more eloquent book on the subjects with which it deals—for, among other things, it is a contribution to the literature of the general agrarian pro- blem—has lately appeared ; none more earnest, none more transparently, almost fiercely, sincere. A personal interest also attaches to the book, and in more senses than one. It is a chapter of psychological autobiography ; it is also a chapter in family evolution. Of living writers who have been specially impressed with the grander aspects of scientific progress, none, with the exception, perhaps, of the Laureate, has been at once so dominated and so consoled by the idea of the reign of law as the Duke of Argyll. And so we might style his new book, "The Struggles, Progress, and Final Triumph of Law in Scot- land." Who but he would deal with periods in the history of his country under such titles as "The Age of Charters," "The Age of Covenants," and "The Fruits of Mind P" Then, in almost every page, the Doke stands revealed as a Celtic Overlord ; as the representative of the Scoto-lrish Campbell who fought for Norman Bruce at Bannockburn against English aggres- sion, and also, in a measure, against Highland anarchy ; of the Campbell who fought for the Covenant against Charles I.; of the Campbell who declined to aid the Second Charles in crushing the Covenanters ; of the Campbell who enlisted Lowland, and essentially Saxon sturdiness, Calvinism, and love of improve- ment, in the cause of Highland progress and prosperity. The very one-sidedness of the Duke of Argyll's book gives it a special value. Whoover not only reads, but believes every word in it, will bless not the Lords of Argyll only, but the great chartered landowners of Scotland generally, as the true bene- factors of their country. Whether the impression be a right or a wrong one, it is a remarkable contrast to the idea generally prevalent, and on both sides of the Border, that the Scotland of to-day owes her prosperity entirely to the energy of her middle class and her peasantry, and that her aristocracy have been obstacles to her welfare, not promoters of it. A fair field should be given to the Duke of Argyll and his views on Scottish material advance, just as a fair field has been secured for the views of writers who, like the late Principal Tulloch and the author of Maitland of Lethington (in his promised volumes, probably, rather than in the one published the other day), con- tend that John Knox and the martyred Covenanters do not represent the whole of religious and Church life in Scotland, or even what is beet and most enduring in it. The final history of Scotland has yet to be written. The Duke of Argyll's book -will be found of the greatest use by the writer of such a work.

The series of essays of which this work is composed cover the ground of Scottish history only in a limited sense. They cannot be said to deal with the religious or the ecclesiastical aspects of thathistory. The "immense influences of literature and science are passed by, except in so far as both are concerned with the progress of the arts and of mechanical invention." Bearing these self-revealing titles,—" Celtic Feudalism," "The Age of Charters," "The Age of Covenants," "The Epoch of the Clans," "The Appeal from Chiefs to Owners," "The Response of Ownership," "Before the Dawn," "The Burst of Industry," and "The Fruits of Mind,"—they "concern," to quote from the Duke's own preface, "the amalgamation of races, the consolida- .

• Scotland salt Was, and as it Is. By the Doko of Argyll. Seek. Edinburgh David Douglas. 1887.

tion of a national government, the beginnings of law, the rise- of industries ; the origin, the growth, and the working of those

accepted doctrines of society which consecrate and establish the respective rights, and the mutual obligations, of men." The book has both a prosaic or argumentative, and a poetico- historical side. Here, in the former sense, is (Vol. I., p. 49) the key-note of it :—" Dominion over, and exclusive possession of, property in land, with all its incidents, has [` had 'is the word in

the Duke's text, but no twisting of his meaning is involved in using the present tense] been vested in Kings and Chiefs and in others under them, in Scotland as in all other countries, time out of mind." The contention of the Duke from first to last is that the exclusive ownership of land, admitting of free exchange, hag been the basis of the social system and the rallying-point of law and civilisation in Scotland. Looked at from another point of view, this book may be described as the dirge of the clan

system, which used to be considered as of the essence of Celtic society, although the Duke of Argyll maintains, and, we think,

proves, that it was not, Thus regarded, it cannot be better summed up than in this passage from the Duke's second volume, which, moreover, is a remarkably good example of the author's historical style :—

"The cruelties, treacheries, disloyalties, and brutalities of the Clans were mere developments of corruption, due to the divorce between them and all settled Government and Law. They represented nothing but anarchy in their relations with the Nation and the Kingdom, and nothing better in their relations with each other. But the root and principle of their organisation was that of a military tribe re- cruiting from all directions—practising obedience, acknowledging authority—and loving its hereditary transmission from those who had first afforded guidance, conduct, and protection. This is a constructive and not a destructive or anarchic principle. It needed only to be turned in a right direction to become one of the steadiest of all foundation-stones for the building.up of a great struc- ture in the light and air of a higher civilisation. It was thus that in the transition between two Ages, the broken fragments of a hundred Septa enlisted under the banner of the Black Watch, and began the immortal services of the Highland Regiments. Yet this is only a late and picturesque incident in a long series of events. Nothing is more striking or more poetic in the history of Scotland than the slow and ardnous processes by which the rough energy of the Military Ages was transformed under the ages of industry and of peace. Mal- colm Canmore had began the transformation by his own Union with the Daughter of another blood. Robert Brace continued it by the welding of broken races in the heat and fire of battle. Between the War of Independence and the Union of the Crowns, it was one long, con- tinuous, constant struggle. But by slow and steady steps the work was done, and Scotland became a nation with a noble and settled Jurisprudence. Oar Kings became oar only Chiefs; oar Country be- came our only Clan. Her Law, the best symbol of her History, and the best expression of her Mind, became the only authority to which we bowed, and the only protection to which we trosted. Under its shelter, man could have confidence in man, because there was no fear of that which even the old Celts ranked with Pestilence and Famine— the breaking of the Bonds of Covenant. In this high field of Human Energy—the establishment of that confidence in Law which is the nearest approach we can ever make to the methods of the Divine Government—Scotland may well be proud of the old beginnings, and of the steady growth, of all her National Institutions."

The first four chapters of the Duke of Argyll's book deal. with "Celtic Feudalism," "The Age of Charters," "The Age of Covenants," and "The Epoch of the Clans ;" and the main propositions in the first three are those which are most likely to be fiercely controverted. For their object is to buttress the doctrine of exclusive and chartered ownership, of which the Duke is a devoted adherent. He virtually dismisses the idea of Celtic tribalism—upon which, it should be remembered, the present-day champions of what may be termed ultra-Crofterism place stress—as being not so much untrue, as beyond all possi- bility of historic discovery, and as therefore, to all intents and purposes, a dream. One thing the Duke makes clear beyond all possibility of doubt,—Celtic feudalism was substantially identical with Lowland feudalism, and the same thing is true of the exclusive ownership established by charters most of which date from or about the time of Robert the Brace. The Duke illustrates these views by citing the case of a Norman knight who became the feudal head of a great Highland clan, and by giving prominence to the striking fact that there is in existence a series of Scottish charters uninterrupted for five hundred years. Feudalism and chartered ownership had more to contend with in the Highlands than in the Low- lands—perhaps they had to destroy the relics of an ancient tribalism—but they triumphed ultimately. The first charters, as is proved by the examples the Duke gives of them, were of the simplest character, and yet they seem to have conferred absolute ownership. From the Age of Charters, we come to the Age of Covenants ; from the ownership to the cultivating

omopation of land. It is rather singular to find that written leases granted by owners to tenants, who came to be known as " tacksmen," and whose powers over those beneath them in the agrarian hierarchy appear to have been rather un- defined, are nearly as old as the charters. Yet such is the case. The Duke of Argyll quotes in fall the Scone Lease, which was an agreement between the Abbot of Scone and a father and aon of the name of De Hay del Leys, which is older than even the Battle of Bannockburn, dating from 1312. The Duke argues that-

" The Age of Charters and the Age of Covenants, instead of being times—as they are often ignorantly represented—of the suppression of ancient liberties among the Celts, by the introduction of foreign tyranny—were, on the contrary, times when the poorer classes of the Celtic community were gradually but steadily delivered and redeemed from very barbarous conditions not only of Feudalism, but of servi- tude, which had grown up amongst themselves. Moreover, we can see that it was the Celtio race which most immediately and directly benefited by the changes which were destroying Bondage. For they often remained as the poorer and the working population of the greater part of the Lowlands and of the Eastern counties over the whole of Scotland, while the ownership of the land was passing steadily into the hands of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman lords. This fact is very clearly reflected in the early Charters and other docu- ments in which the regular Serfs or Bondsmen were the Nativi or old Native Celtic population, whilst in some Charters they are called the 'Catnerlache,'—a purely Celtic word which has been traced through the Irish language to the term applicable to men who cultivated 'servile lend.' Moreover, in almost all cases in which individuals of this class are mentioned in the Chartularies, they are designated by Celtic names."

The two chapters on "The Age of Charters" and "The Age of Covenants" lead up naturally to "The Epoch of the Clans," in which the clan system is subjected to a most scathing attack, supported by startling but incontrovertible facts. The sub- sequent chapters on "The Appeal from Chiefs to Owners "(this appeal was made in 1578 by the Scottish Parliament) and "The Response of Ownership," deal with the attempts made to grapple with the evils of the clan system, and the comparative success of these attempts.

When, in his second volume, the Doke of Argyll deals with what may fairly be termed modern Scotland, in his chapters "Before the Dawn," "The Burst of Industry," and "The Fruits of Mind," he treads on comparatively familiar ground. The raising of the Highland regiments, the growth and decline of the kelp industry, starvation, emigration, the great successes attained by industry in Scotland, more particularly in the Low- lands,—it is hardly possible for the Duke to add much to pre- viously acquired knowledge on these points. At the same time, he is able, by drawing upon his personal experiences, to illustrate the advance made by Scotland since, and largely on account of, her Union with England. His chapter on "The Burst of In- dustry " is exceptionally picturesque. In his anxiety to show the services rendered by ownership to Scotland generally, and to the Highlands more particularly, the Duke hardly seems to take into sufficient account the exertions made by the Scottish commonalty. On the other hand, he is quite entitled to give prominence to such statements as this

"Between the Report of Calloden [i.e., Duncan Forbes, of Culloden], and the potato failure and consequent famine of 1846-47, I am in possession of a continuous series of documents showing the progress of affairs in the Island of Tyree. They prove in the greatest detail that every single step towards improvement which has been taken daring the last hundred and fifty years has been taken by the Pro- prietor and not by the people. Not only so, but every one of these steps without exception bars been taken against the prevailing opinions and feelings of the people at the time. 'All in this farm very poor and against any change,' such is the description repeated over and over again in a detailed Report on each Farm sent to my grandfather, John, sixth Deice, in 1803, when he was contemplating certain changes The abolition of the Run-rig system was always most unpopular in the Highlands. In Tyree, as elsewhere, it was abolished, and could only be abolished, by the authority of Owner- ship. Again, illicit distillation—with the worse than waste of an immense quantity of grain—was another inveterate habit, sup- pressed with the greatest difficulty by the same power. Every sub- sequent measure of improvement—the regular division of individual holdings, the fencing of them, the selection of the best candidates for the occupation of them, the prohibition of cultivation on land liable to destructive sand-blowing, the building of a better class of houses, the introduction of ploughs in substitution for the primitive crooked spade, the introduction of carts, of grain of a better kind, of superior stock, of dairy-farming ; in short, every single item of progress in agriculture, has been the work, and often the arduous and expensive work, of the Proprietor."

It will be seen that Scotland coil Was, and as it Is, is a con- tribution to a burning controversy of the day, as well as to Scottish socio-economical history. It would be difficult to say in which respect it is the more noteworthy.