ON THE CHANGES IN THE HABITS, amusementS, AND CONDITION OF THE SCOTTISH PEASANTRY. BY THE ETTRICK

SHEPHERD.

To the Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture.

CHANCING to be in a party of old friends the night before last, one of them gave me a touch on the elbow, and said, “Can you tell me, Hogg, what has been the moving cause of those changes which have gradually taken place in the habits, amusements, and conditions of our peasantry, since our early recollections ?"

"Upon my word, Sir," said I, looking more than usually grave, "the thing never struck me till this moment that you put the question; for, as having been one of them myself, and joining keenly in all their amusements for the last fifty-three years, the change has been I suppose so gradual that I never perceived it. But, on a cursory look backward, I think there is some difference in the characters and amusements of our young peasantry from those of a former generation; but d-l take me if I know how it has happened. Let me think about it a little while, and I'll try to account for it; for it will be a queer thing indeed if I cannot account for any thing that has taken place among the Border peasantry at least."

"You can tell me this without any fore-thought," said he; "Are they worse fed, worse clothed, or worse educated than the old shepherds and hinds of your first acquaintance? Are their characters, in a general point of view, deteriorated or otherwise? Or are they more cheerful, more happy, and more devout than those of a former day ?"

"In as far," said I, " as it regards shepherds and farmservants, they are not in my opinion deteriorated. They are better fed, better clothed, and better educated than the old shepherds and hinds of my first acquaintance; but they are less devout, and decidedly less cheerful and happy."

"On looking back, the first great falling off is in SONG. This, to me, is not only astonishing, but unaccountable. They have ten times more opportunities of learning songs, yet song-singing is at an end, or only kept up by a few migratory tailors. In

my young days, we had singing matches almost every night, and, if no other chance or opportunity offered, the young men attended at the ewe-bught or the cows milking, and listened and joined the girls in their melting lays. We had again our kirns at the end of harvest, and our lint-swinglings in almost every farm-house and cottage, which proved as a weekly bout for the greater part of the winter. And then, with the exception of Wads, and little kissing and toying in consequence, song, song alone, was the sole amusement. I never heard any music that thrilled my heart half so much as when these nymphs joined their voices, all in one key, and sung a slow Scottish melody. Many a hundred times has it made the hairs of my head creep, and the tears start into my eyes, to hear such as the Flowers of the Forest, and Broom of Cowdyknows. Where are those melting strains now? Gone, and for ever! Is it not unaccountable that, even in the classic Ettrick and Yarrow, the enthusiasm of song should have declined in proportion as that of their bards has advanced? Yet so it is. I have given great annual kirns, and begun singing the first myself, in order to elicit some remnants, some semblance at least, of the strains of former days. But no; those strains could be heard from no one, with the exception of one shepherd, Wat Amos, who alone, for these twenty years, has been always ready to back me. I say, with the exception of him and of Tam the tailor, there seems to be no songster remaining. By dint of hard pressing, a blooming nymph will sometimes venture on a song of Moore's or Dibdin's (curse them !), and gaping, and half-choking, with a voice like a cracked kirk-bell, finish her song in notes resembling the agonies of a dying sow.

The publication of the Border Minstrelsy had a singular and unexpected effect in this respect. These songs had floated down on the stream of oral tradition, from generation to generation, and were regarded as a precious treasure belonging to the country; but when Mr Scott's work appeared their arcanum was laid open, and a deadening blow was inflicted on our rural literature and principal enjoyment by the very means adopted for their preservation. I shall never forget with what amazement and dumb dismay the old songsters regarded these relics, calling out at every verse," changed! changed!" though it never

appeared to me that they could make out any material change, save in "Jamie Telfer o' the fair Dodhead." On reading that song, both my own parents were highly offended at the gallant rescue being taken from the Elliots and given to the Scots.

With regard to all the manly exercises, had it not been for my own single exertions I think they would have been totally extinct in the Border districts. For the last forty years I have struggled to preserve them in a local habitation, and a name, and I have not only effected it, but induced more efficient bodies to follow the example; such as the Great St Ronan's Border Club, the gallant Six Feet Club, &c. I have begged, I have borrowed of my rich Edinburgh friends, I have drawn small funds reluctantly from the farmers who attended, for the purpose of purchasing the prizes; but more frequently I have purchased them all from my own pocket; and though these prizes were necessarily of small value, yet by publishing annually all the victors' names in the newspapers, and the distance effected by each, and the competitor next to him, a stimulus was given for excellency in all these manly exercises, such as appears not to have existed for a century and more,—indeed, never since the religious troubles in Scotland commenced.

Still there is a change from gay to grave, from cheerfulness to severity; and it is not easy to trace the source from which it has sprung. The diet of the menials and workmen is uniformly much better than it was when I went first to service half a century ago. The tasks of labour are not more severe, but better proportioned, and more regular, and in general less oppressive. But with regard to the intercourse between master and servant, there is a mighty change indeed, and to this I am disposed principally to attribute the manifest change in the buoyant spirit and gaiety of our peasantry. Formerly every master sat at the head of his kitchen table, and shared the meal with his servants. The mistress, if there was one, did not sit down at all, but stood at the dresser behind, and assigned each his portion, or otherwise overlooked the board, and saw that every one got justice. The master asked a blessing, and returned thanks. There was no badinage or idle language in the farmer's hall in those days, but all was decency and order. Every night the master performed family worship, at

which every member of the family was bound to be present, and every Sabbath morning at least, and the oldest male servant in his absence took that duty on him. The consequence of all this familiarity and exchange of kind offices was, that every individual family formed a little community of its own, of which each member was conscious of bearing an important part. And then the constant presence of the master and mistress preventing all ebullitions of untimely merriment, when the hours of relaxation came, then the smothered glee burst out with a luxury of joy and animation, of which we may now look in vain for a single specimen:

But ever since the ruinous war prices made every farmer for the time a fine gentleman, how the relative situations of master and servant are changed! Before that time every farmer was first up in the morning, conversed with all his servants familiarly, and consulted what was best to be done for the day. Now, the foreman, or chief shepherd, waits on his master, and, receiving his instructions, goes forth and gives the orders as his own, generally in a peremptory and offensive manner. The menial of course feels that he is no more a member of a community, but a slave; a servant of servants, a mere tool of labour in the hand of a man whom he knows or deems inferior to himself, and the joy of his spirit is mildewed. He is a moping, sullen, melancholy man, flitting from one master to another in hopes to find heart's ease and contentment,—but he finds it not; and now all the best and most independent of that valuable class of our community are leaving the country.

Before the revolutionary war, before a borderer would have thought of deserting his native country, he would sooner have laid down his head in the grave with his fathers, "the rude forefathers of the hamlet." But now all the best are leaving it; all the industrious, diligent, and respectable men who have made a little competency to carry them to another country, are hastening away as if a pestilence were approaching them. God grant that it be not a prelude to approaching evil!

Again, at meal times, and in all their hours of relaxation, there are now no restraints on them as formerly. Consequently, their jokes are coarser, and one profligate servant may sometimes materially affect the probity and virtuous feelings not of

one family of servants, but of many of which he is an annual member. Formerly a master and his servants rarely parted; now there is a constant circulation from one family to another throughout the whole country. The greater number of the married shepherds are, however, an exception to this. Every one of these having a share of the stock of which he has the charge, feels as much interested as his master, and is mostly a permanent possessor. These shepherds form a very intelligent and superior class of the community. But the truth is, that, for the most part, farm-servants still sustain a good name for sobriety and probity. They feel that they must do so, and that the existence of themselves and families depends on it. It is from the families of a sort of half independent class, such as feuars, that the moral quiet of the country is disturbed.

Further, if poaching may be admitted as a country pastime, there is an overwhelming increase of that of late years. When I was young, there assuredly were no game laws, or, if there were, I never heard of them. Every man who liked to take a shot did so, provided the farmers and shepherds would allow him. But there was a hard obstacle to be got over, for they would not let a man set a foot on their premises, so that in those days there were no regular or systematic poachers. There were always a few who shot a hare by moonlight, or even ventured to trace her in a snow when the farmer's stock of sheep were gathered from the hill, and that was the extent of poaching over all this country. Indeed, there were no black-cocks then. I was upwards of twenty years a shepherd ere ever I saw one in the south of Scotland, so that the temptations for poaching were not then so great. But now the poachers go forth in bands of from three to eight, with their faces blackened, their pointers and percussion-guns, and they range over the whole country from day to day, and from month to month, without once being challenged. The farmers and shepherds tried at first to stop them; but they found it both vain and dangerous. They could not seize them without a warrant, and they could not discover who they were so as to procure warrants. There is certainly something strangely deficient in the law here. should conceive that the man who goes out among a farmer's stock, with a dog and a gun, and a blackened face, might be

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