Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/69

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the same time with content, that place him on the scale of moral excellence far above those who ridicule or despise him. Serious, without morose- ness; quick, without asperity; and sagacious, with- out conceit; friendly, kind, and just; this may be considered as the moral portrait of such part of the Scotch as are not sophisticated or spoiled by a communication with their southern neighbours. Of this description I think 1 may pronounce the inhabitants of the borders to be, who perhaps are more national in their manners, practices, and ideas, than the northern counties of the kingdom; from the circumstance of effeEls being still felt in these parts, which have long faded away in the more distant divisions of the country. The natural con- sequence of those perpetual feuds which subsisted between the borderers of both kingdoms was a reciprocal rooted hatred, piously handed clown from father to son, and carefully transmitted through successive generations by legendary tales and popu- lar ballads, whose constant theme and burthen were the injuries which each party had received from the other, and the vengeance which these inju- ries deserved. Amongst the other Scots the national disgust to the English, though excited before their conquest by frequent wars, had ceased (at least in a great degree) as soon as those wars had termi-

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