306

HISTOltT OP ENGLAND.

CIMP.

XIII.

IGS3.

But the arts of poetry and rhetoric may be carried near to abso--lute perfection, and may exercise a mighty influence on thepublic mind, in an age in which books are wholly or almostwholly unknown. The first great painter of life and mannershas described, with a vivacity which makes it impossible todoubt that he was copying from nature, the effect produced byeloquence and song on audiences ignorant of the alphabet. Itis probable that, in the Highland councils, men w'ho would nothave been qualified for the duty of parish clerks sometimesargued questions of peace and war, of tribute and homage,with ability worthy of Halifax and Caermarthen, and that, atthe Highland banquets, minstrels who did not know theirletters sometimes poured forth rhapsodies in which a discerningcritic might have found passages which w r ould have remindedhim of the tenderness of Otway or of the vigour of Dryden.

There was therefore even then evidence sufficient to justifythe belief that no natural inferiority had kept the Celt far be-hind the Saxon. It might safely have been predicted that, ifever an efficient police should make it impossible for the High-lander to avenge his wrongs by violence and to supply bis wantsby rapine, if ever his faculties should be developed by thecivilising influence of the Protestant religion and of the Englishlanguage, if ever he should transfer to his country and to herlawful magistrates the affection and respect with which he hadbeen taught to regard his own petty community and his ownpetty prince, the kingdom would obtain an immense accessionof strength for all the purposes both of peace and of war.

Such would doubtless have been the decision of a well in-formed and impartial judge. But no such judge w r as then to befound. The Saxons who dwelt far from the Gaelic provincescould not be well informed. The Saxons who dwelt near thoseprovinces couldnot be impartial. National enmities have alwaysbeen fiercest among borderers; and the enmity between the