Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series, vol. 4 - 1819.djvu/165

 was sure to throw the whole into confusion. War, therefore, as practised among most nations of Europe, had assumed much more than formerly the character of a profession or mystery, to which previous practice and experience were indispensible requisites. Such was the natural consequence of standing armies, which had almost everywhere, and particularly in the long German wars, superseded, what may be called the natural discipline of the feudal militia.

The Scotch Lowland militia, therefore, laboured under a double disadvantage when opposed to Highlanders. They were divested of the spear, a weapon which, in the hands of their ancestors, had so often repelled the impetuous assaults of the mountaineers; and they were subjected to a new and complicated species of discipline, well adapted, perhaps, to the use of regular troops, who could be rendered completely masters of it, but tending only to confuse the ranks of citizen-soldiers, by whom it was rarely practised, and imperfectly un-