ment at work,
during these last twenty years, upon all the Cottages in Scotland. The
villages are certainly much neater and cleaner than formerly, and in
very few respects, if any, positively offensive. Perhaps none of them
have--nor ever will have--the exquisite trimness, the habitual and
hereditary rustic elegance, of the best villages of England. There, even
the idle and worthless have an instinctive love of what is decent, and
orderly, and pretty in their habitations. The very drunkard must have a
well-sanded floor, a clean-swept hearth, clear-polished furniture, and
uncobwebbed walls to the room in which he quaffs, guzzles, and smokes
himself into stupidity. His wife may be a scold, but seldom a
slattern--his children ill taught, but well apparelled. Much of this is
observable even among the worst of the class; and, no doubt, such things
must also have their effect in tempering and restraining excesses.
Whereas, on the other hand, the house of a well-behaved, well-doing
English villager is a perfect model of comfort and propriety. In
Scotland, the houses of the dissolute are always dens of dirt, and
disorder, and distraction. All ordinary goings-on are inextricably
confused--meals eaten in different nooks, and at no regular
hour--nothing in its right place or time--the whole abode as if on the
eve of a flitting; while, with few exceptions, even in the dwellings of
the best families in the village, one may detect occasional
forgetfulness of trifling matters, that, if remembered, would be found
greatly conducive to comfort--occasional insensibilities to what would
be graceful in their condition, and might be secured at little expense
and less trouble--occasional blindness to minute deformities that mar
the aspect of the household, and which an awakened eye would sweep away
as absolute nuisances. Perhaps the very depth of their affections--the
solemnity of their religious thoughts--and the reflective spirit in
which they carry on the warfare of life--hide from them the perception
of what, after all, is of such very inferior moment, and even create a
sort of austerity of character which makes them disregard, too much,
trifles that appear to have no influence or connection with the essence
of weal or woe. Yet if there be any truth in this, it affords, we
confess, an explanation rather than a justification.

Our business at present, however, is rather with single Cottages than
with villages. We Scottish people have, for