e took from the
rich, was liberal in relieving the poor. This might in part be policy;
but the universal tradition of the country speaks it to have arisen from
a better motive. All whom I have conversed with, and I have in my youth
seen some who knew Rob Roy personally, give him the character of a
benevolent and humane man "in his way."

His ideas of morality were those of an Arab chief, being such as
naturally arose out of his wild education. Supposing Rob Roy to have
argued on the tendency of the life which he pursued, whether from choice
or from necessity, he would doubtless have assumed to himself the
character of a brave man, who, deprived of his natural rights by the
partiality of laws, endeavoured to assert them by the strong hand of
natural power; and he is most felicitously described as reasoning thus,
in the high-toned poetry of my gifted friend Wordsworth:

Say, then, that he was wise as brave,
As wise in thought as bold in deed;
For in the principles of things
_He_ sought his moral creed.

Said generous Rob, "What need of Books?
Burn all the statutes and their shelves!
They stir us up against our kind,
And worse, against ourselves.

"We have a passion, make a law,
Too false to guide us or control;
And for the law itself we fight
In bitterness of soul.

"And puzzled, blinded, then we lose
Distinctions that are plain and few;
These find I graven on my heart,
That tells me what to do.

"The creatures see of flood and field,
And those that travel on the wind
With them no strife can last; they live
In peace, and peace of mind.

"For why? Because the good old rule
Sufficeth them; the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.

"A lesson which is quickly learn'd,
A signal through which all can see;
Thus, nothing here provokes the strong
To wanton cruelty.

"And freakishness of mind is check'd,
He