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Page xii:-
It would seem indeed (by the bye) that the Scots excelled in
the use of the spear, and (excepting the Borderers)
neglected the bow; since one of their own Kings is thought
to have recommended its more general use, by ridiculing
their imperfect management of it. [See Poems of James I.]
A people accustomed to be called to the field on such
trifling occasions, and inured to hardships by such causes,
were also very ready to help forward commotions of a larger
scale. Here Henry IV. had his first dawn of empire; and the
Pierces, with their border-friends, afterwards almost shook
him from his throne. The battle of Shrewsbury was one of the
fiercest in the English history, and has moroever had
Shakespeare for its poet. The north also was the nursery of
those armies which supported the cause of Henry VI. and of
Margaret, and serve to add to the miseries of England so
much during the contest between the Houses of York and
Lancaster.
Such are a few of the consequences that may, in my opinion,
be fairly deduced from insignificant causes in those parts,
viz. From the little piques of individuals where
regular laws were wanting: and the consequent irregularities
of life acquired great force, when their effects were united
together, even in things not immediately pertaining to
themselves. Their exact commencement is lost in antiquity;
only I think one may venture to subjoin, that as these
little things have occasionally produced considerable
effects, so they themselves seem to have originated from
causes still more considerable; i.e. the driving of
the Northern nations Southward: a tendency which, though
obstructed at intervals, continued still to exist, and make
a figure in history, from the time when the Cimmerians broke
into Upper Asia, to times which were long after the fall of
the Roman empire. The traces remained, and these are some of
them; which, whatever may be thought, were much elder than
the animosities excited by the first Edward, though the
appointment of Lord Wardens might somewhat alter their
appearance. So much for a comment and application of the
first paragraph: now I proceed to the second.
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II. From what motive it is I know not, except it is from the
prejudices of habit, that persons, who have been accustomed
to a wandering unsettled life, and such as cultivation would
pronounce unhappy, reject the conveniences of regular life
with wonderful perseverance; but gypsies and vagrants
furnish daily and indisputable proofs of its being so. Their
fondness for continual migration seems to have been sucked
in with their mother's milk; and one would think, that they
found amongst the comforts of society, certain restraints,
which it not only irked them to bear, but which far
overbalanced all its benefits. Surely there is in the mind
of man a strange longing for freedom; and when custom,
sometimes stronger than nature, accords with it, their
united efforts must be very powerful. The Isaurians were a
small nation in the heart of the Roman empire; they dwelt
amongst mountains; they saw civilization on every side, yet
they rejected it with scorn; and, on occasions, found
employment for the Legions through the course of several
ages. The Eskimaux returns with glee from our luxuries to
his native desarts, and to feed on train-oil, or stinking
blubber. The Indians, who have been educated in the schools
of North-America, revolt to the barbarism of their fathers.
The Swiss, when in the service of foreign states, have many
of them died of a longing to revisit the mountains where
they spent their infancy; and the disorder has acquired, as
it justly merited, a name of its own. And thus the vagrant,
who perhaps never slept in a cradle, yearns for a windy barn
and a bed of straw, instead of our boasted conveniences;
which, whilst custom has made grateful to us, it hath made
uneasy shackles to him. It is silly to blame those
prejudices in others which can retort so easily upon our
own: besides, every single man hath some humor or other,
which, though grateful to him, may be the reverse to
another: and this makes me oft think, that no one should
wonder at prejudices, till he has first tried to give their
cause a fair investigation. The reference which these
remarks have to our present business, is as follows.
The people who inhabited the counties contiguous to the
borders of England and
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