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[mem]bers to Parliament. It is very like Cumberland in its
soil and climate, and similarity of manners is every where
to be found in both. Dr Falconer, in a learned and elegant
paper, published in the Memoirs of the Literary Society of
Manchester, has proved almost to demonstration, that the
scenery of a country has the greatest share in
forming the manners of its inhabitants: but to this I must
add another source equally powerful, the necessities of
situation.
The contemplation of barren heaths, bleak, rocky mountains,
and almost impassable swamps and mosses, will naturally fill
the mind with gloomy and uncomfortable ideas; but when the
inhabitant has his daily sustenance to collect from these
dreary wilds, he will alternately starve and gluttonize. If
he is one day pinched with hunger, he will, if the next
affords him a prey, fall to with the voracity of a wolf. Can
we then wonder, that people so situated should have frequent
quarrels with their neighbours? Can we wonder that they
should, by every species of cruelty, endeavour to terrify
their neighbours from attacking them, where we must be
sensible that they have only the dreadful alternative to
massacre their invaders, or perish by hunger? When necessity
has thus begun the practice of cruelty, a spirit of revenge
keeps it alive, till custom rivets it too fast to be easily
removed.
In every country where this is not the case, a spirit of
humanity in general keeps time with martial ardour. The
vanquished yielding enemy is considered as not only entitled
to mercy, but protection: the valour he has that day shewn,
though at the expence of the noblest blood of the victors,
increases the respect shewn him; and no one ever thinks of
revenging at that time the death of a father, a son, or a
brother. The Israelites were perhaps the only civilized
nation that ever massacred a vanquished enemy in cool blood;
nor were they contented with death alone, for they tortured
them in the most cruel manner; "they hewed them to pieces
with axes, and tore them with harrows." It is true, they
pretended a divine mandate for this; but what age has not
produced some crafty, designing priest, of art and impudence
sufficient to gloss over the blackest crimes! The situation
of the countries I am here describing is such, that they are
extremely beautiful in Summer, and equally cold, bleak, and
uncomfortable in Winter; and as we know that agriculture has
been very lately improved, or ever introduced here, we may
conclude that the necessities of them were much
varied. In Summer, the inhabitants would live pleasantly and
plentifully enough by hunting and fishing; but in Winter,
(before the art of preserving meat by the means of salt was
discovered,) their fare must have been very precarious. This
would naturally enough introduce the desire of those
conveniences their neighbours might chance to enjoy; and
among people where legislature is very imperfect, as theirs
was till very lately, the next step is plunder. The
consequences of these primeval habits are scarcely yet worn
out. We find, very late in the annals of history, the
inhabitants of these northern counties marked as despising
danger to a great degree: most of their ways of speaking of
it are ludicrous; and whoever has seen them engaged in their
favourite amusement, the Foot-ball, will perceive
that even their diversions were hazardous. With all this
ferocity, there was, however, a strong tincture of
generosity; history, tradition, and the old popular ballads
confirm it by numerous instances. Even among the inhabitants
of the debateable ground there was a kind of
principle of honour mixed with their thefts; for, though
outlaws from both kingdoms, and punished with death when
taken, they seldom or never did violence to the person of
the traveller, and have even been known to do actions of the
highest generosity to those whose misfortunes needed such
assistance. This is, as far as I can determine, the real
character of the northern counties: I shall only add, that
the spirit of these people, though changed from its original
channel, is not lost; for now it breaks out in obstinate
lawsuits, as the learned counsellors who attend this circuit
can avouch.
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