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122 hospitable, but not complaisant, to strangers. Insincerity and cruelty have no existence amongst them; but if they ought not to be hated they can never be much loved, for they are incapable of insinuation, and their ignorance of the world makes them unfit for entertaining sensible strangers. They are public-spirited, but torn to pieces by factions. A gloominess in religion renders one part of them very barbarous, and an enthusiasm in politics so transports the genteeler part, that they sacrifice to party almost every consideration of tenderness. Among such a people a man may long live, little known, and less instructed; for their reservedness renders them uncommunicative, and their excessive haughtiness prevents them from being solicitous of knowledge.

The Scots are far from being a dull nation; they are lovers of pomp and show, but then there is an eternal stiffness, a kind of affected dignity, which spoils their pleasures. Hence we have the less reason to wonder that Boyse lived obscurely at Edinburgh.