Page images
PDF
EPUB

of the Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs have done all which can be expected from societies so constituted, in encouraging the present laborious and expensive work; and it will be but fair in those who call loudly upon them to give the world the benefit of their private presses, to show, on an occasion like the present, that they really set a value upon such things-since, whether the exclusive system practised by these institutions is or is not the most advantageous that might be devised, it certainly has arisen from the carelessness and coldness with which almost all insulated attempts of this nature have recently been suffered to fall to the ground.

LETTERS

TO THE

EDITOR OF THE EDINBURGH WEEKLY JOURNAL,

FROM

MALACHI MALAGROWTHER, Esq.

ON THE

PROPOSED CHANGE OF CURRENCY,

AND

OTHER LATE ALTERATIONS,

AS THEY AFFECT, OR ARE INTENDED TO AFFECT,

THE

KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND.

Ergo, Caledonia, nomen inane, Vale!

[blocks in formation]

I am by pedigree a discontented person, so that you may throw this letter into the fire, if you have any apprehensions of incurring the displeasure of your superiors. I am, in fact, the lineal descendant of Sir Mungo Malagrowther, who makes a figure in the Fortunes of Nigel, and have retained a reasonable proportion of his ill luck, and, in consequence, of his ill temper. If, therefore, I should chance to appear too warm and poignant in my observations, you must impute it to the hasty and peevish humour which I derive from my ancestor. But at the same time, it often happens that this disposition leads me to speak useful, though un

* [These Letters were addressed to the author's friend, Mr. James Ballantyne, Editor of the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, and they appeared in that newspaper in February and March, 1826. They were then collected into a Pamphlet, and ran through numerous editions: in the subsequent discussions in Parliament, they were frequently referred to: and although an elaborate answer, by the then Secretary of the Admiralty, Mr. Croker, attracted much notice, and was, by the government of the time, expected to neutralize the effect of the northern lucubrations-the proposed measure, as regarded Scotland, was ultimately abandoned-and that result was universally ascribed to Malachi Malagrowther.]

pleasant truths, when more prudent men hold their tongues and eat their pudding. A lizard is an ugly and disgusting thing enough; but, methinks, if a lizard were to run over my face and awaken me, which is said to be their custom when they observe a snake approach a sleeping person, I should neither scorn his intimation, nor feel justifiable in crushing him to death, merely because he is a filthy little abridgement of a crocodile. Therefore, "for my love, I pray you, wrong me not."

I am old, sir, poor, and peevish, and, therefore, I may be wrong; but when I look back on the last fifteen or twenty years, and more especially on the last ten, I think I see my native country of Scotland, if it is yet to be called by a title so discriminative, falling, so far as its national, or rather, perhaps, I ought now to say, its provincial, interests are concerned, daily into more absolute contempt. Our ancestors were a people of some consideration in the councils of the empire. So late as my own younger days, an English minister would have paused, even in a favourite measure, if a reclamation of national rights had been made by a member for Scotland, supported, as it uniformly then was, by the voice of her representatives and her people. Such ameliorations in our peculiar system as were thought necessary, in order that North Britain might keep pace with her sister in the advance of improvement, were suggested by our own countrymen, persons well acquainted with our peculiar system of laws (as different from those of England as from those of France), and who knew exactly how to adapt the desired alteration to the principle of our legislative enactments, so that the whole machine might, as mechanics say, work well and easily. For a long time this wholesome check upon innovation, which requires the assimilation of a proposed improvement with the general constitution of the country to which it has been recommended, and which ensures that important point, by stipulating that the measure shall originate with those to whom the spirit of the constitution is familiar, has been, so far as Scotland is concerned, considerably disused. Those who have stepped forward to repair the gradual failure of our constitutional system of law, have been persons that, howsoever qualified in other respects, have had little farther knowledge of its construction, than could be acquired by a hasty and partial survey, taken just

« PreviousContinue »