an instance of a Scotchman holding a
learned position in any other country," and farther says that "the small
number of names of literary Scotchmen known throughout Europe for eminence
in literature and science is of itself sufficient to show to how great an
extent the present race of Scotchmen have lost the position which their
ancestors held in the world of letters." [1]

[Footnote 1: _North British Review_, May, 1853.]

How, indeed, could it be otherwise? Centralization tends to carry to
London all the wealth and all the expenditure of the kingdom, and thus to
destroy everywhere the local demand for books or newspapers, or for men
capable of producing either. Centralization taxes the poor people of the
north of Scotland, and their complaints of distress are answered by an
order for their expulsion, that place may be made for sheep and shepherds,
neither of whom make much demand for books. Centralization appropriates
millions for the improvement of London and the creation of royal palaces
and pleasure-grounds in and about that city, while Holyrood, and all other
of the buildings with which Scottish history is connected, are allowed to
go to ruin. Centralization gives libraries and museums to London, but it
refuses the smallest aid to the science or literature of Scotland.
Centralization deprives the people of the power to educate themselves, by
drawing from them more than thirty millions of dollars, raised by
taxation, and it leaves the professors in the colleges of Scotland in the
enjoyment of chairs, the emoluments of many of which are but $1,200 per
annum. Whence, then, can come the demand for books, or the power to
compensate the people who make them? Not, assuredly, from the mass of
unhappy people who occupy the Highlands, whose starving condition
furnishes so frequent occasion for the comments of their literary
countrymen; nor, as certainly, from the wretched inhabitants of the wynds
of Glasgow, or from the weavers of Paisley. Centralization is gradually
separating the people into two classes--the very rich, who live in
London, and the very poor, who remain in Scotland; and with the progress
of this division there is a gradual decay in the feeling of national
pride, that formerly so much distinguished the people of Scotland. The
London "Leader" tells its readers that "England is a power made up of
conquests over nationalities;" and it is right. The nationality of
Scotland has disappeared; and, however much i