by Mrs. Keith, Tristram Shandy[191], Tom Jones, Humphrey Clinker, etc., were on the drawing-room tables of ladies whose grandchildren or great-grandchildren never saw them, or would not acknowledge it if they had seen them.  But authors not inferior to Sterne, Fielding, or Smollett, are now popular, who, with Charles Dickens, can describe scenes of human life with as much force and humour, and yet in whose pages nothing will be found which need offend the taste of the most refined, or shock the feelings of the most pure.  This is a change where there is also great improvement.  It indicates not merely a better moral perception in authors themselves, but it is itself a homage to the improved spirit of the age.  We will hope that, with an improved exterior, there is improvement in society within.  If the feelings shrink from what is coarse in expression, we may hope that vice has, in some sort, lost attraction.  At any rate, from what we discern around us we hope favourably for the general improvement of mankind, and of our own beloved country in particular.  If Scotland, in parting with her rich and racy dialect, her odd and eccentric characters, is to lose something in quaint humour and good stories, we will hope she may grow and strengthen in better things—­good as those are which she loses.  However this may be, I feel quite assured that the examples which I have now given, of Scottish expressions, Scottish modes and habits of life, and Scottish anecdotes, which belong in a great measure to the past, and yet which are remembered as having a place in the present century, must carry conviction that great changes have taken place in the Scottish social circle.  There were some things belonging to our country which we must all have desired should be changed.  There were others which we could only see changed with regret and sorrow.  The hardy and simple habits of Scotsmen of many past generations; their industry, economy, and integrity, which made them take so high a place in the estimation and the confidence of the people amongst whom they dwelt in all countries of the world; the intelligence and superior education of her mechanics and her peasantry, combined with a strict moral and religious demeanour, fully justified the praise of Burns when he described the humble though sublime piety of the “Cottar’s Saturday Night,” and we can well appreciate the testimony which he bore to the hallowed power and sacred influences of the devotional exercises of his boyhood’s home, when he penned the immortal words:—­

     “From scenes like these old Scotia’s grandeur springs,
     That makes her loved at home, revered abroad.”