intense suffering. And well are these Highlanders aware of
the true character of the revolution to which they have been
subjected. Our Poor-Law Commissioners may find, in this land of
growing pauperism, thousands as poor as the people of Sutherland; but
they will find no class of the population who can so directly contrast
their present destitution with a state of comparative plenty and
enjoyment, or who, in consequence of possessing this sad ability, are
so deeply imbued with a too well-grounded and natural discontent.

But we have not yet said how this ruinous revolution was effected in
Sutherland,--how the aggravations of the _mode_, if we may so speak,
still fester in the recollections of the people,--or how thoroughly
that policy of the lord of the soil, through which he now seems
determined to complete the work of ruin which his predecessor began,
harmonizes with its worst details. We must first relate, however, a
disastrous change which took place, in the providence of God, in the
noble family of Sutherland, and which, though it dates fully eighty
years back, may be regarded as pregnant with the disasters which
afterwards befell the country.

CHAPTER IV.

Such of our readers as are acquainted with the memoir of Lady
Glenorchy, must remember a deeply melancholy incident which occurred
in the history of this excellent woman, in connection with the noble
family of Sutherland. Her only sister had been married to William,
seventeenth Earl of Sutherland,--'the last of the good Earls;' 'a
nobleman,' says the Rev. Dr. Jones, in his Memoir, 'who to the finest
person united all the dignity and amenity of manners and character
which give lustre to greatness.' But his sun was destined soon to go
down. Five years after his marriage, which proved one of the happiest,
and was blessed with two children, the elder of the two, the young
Lady Catherine, a singularly engaging child, was taken from him by
death, in his old hereditary castle of Dunrobin. The event deeply
affected both parents, and preyed on their health and spirits. It had
taken place amid the gloom of a severe northern winter, and in the
solitude of the Highlands; and, acquiescing in the advice of friends,
the Earl and his lady quitted the family seat, where there was so much
to remind them of their bereavement, and sought relief in the more
cheerful atmosphere of Bath. But they were not to find it there.
Shortly after their arrival, the Earl was seized b