Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/10

 treated, than works acknowledged to possess merit of the highest order? Let then the critics do their worst; I have found a cure for every wound they can inflict on my vanity. But there are others besides professed critics, concerning whose opinion of the propriety or tendency of this little work I confess myself to be most anxious, and those are the well-wishers to the improvement of their country.

A warm attachment to the country of our ancestors naturally produces a lively interest in all that concerns its happiness and prosperity; but though in this attachment few of the children of Caledonia are deficient, widely different are the views taken of the manner in which it ought to be displayed.

In the opinion of vulgar minds, it ought to produce a blind and indiscriminating partiality for national modes, manners, and customs; and a zeal that kindles into rage at whoever dares to suppose that our country has not in every instance reached perfection. Every hint at the necessity of further improvement is, by such persons, deemed a libel on all that has been already done; and the exposition of what is faulty, though with a view to its amendment,