Roderick died without issue. It is, however, clear, from "Cumha Mhic-Leoid," that he had both male and female issue; though his son, Norman, predeceased him. John Mackenzie, of "The Beauties of Gaelic Poetry," in a foot-note to the above-quoted poem, says, that "Stewart of Appin was married to a daughter of [this] Macleod of Dunvegan, which made the Macleods afraid that he should claim a right to the estate, on account of Macleod having left no male-heir." Roderick married Margaret, eldest daughter of Sir John Mackenzie of Tarbat (eldest son of Sir Roderick Mackenzie, Tutor of Kintail, and progenitor of the Earls of Cromarty), by Margaret, daughter of Sir George Erskine of Innerteil, a Lord of Session, without, as we have seen, any surviving male issue. She married, as her second husband, Sir George Campbell of Lawers, in the County of Perth.

Roderick Macleod died in January, 1664, when he was succeeded by his only brother.

THE HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS-THEIR SOCIAL AND LITERARY HISTORY-1775-1832.

[BY PROVOST MACANDREW.]

AT the commencement of the period of which we are treating, the Highlands had entered on a state of social and economic change. Influences, which had long been at work in other parts of the country, and had gradually produced their results there, were all at once brought to bear on the Highlands, and were producing a dissolution of the old bonds of society. The defeat of the last rebellion resulted in the effective disarmament of the clans, the deprivation of the chiefs and landlords of all judicial and territorial power over their tenants and the residents on their lands, and in the making effectual and patent all over the Highlands the power of the Central Government, and the authority of the law of the land administered by judges appointed by the Crown. The law did not attempt to interfere with that feeling of kinship, of common origin, and of tribal loyalty, which, apart from territorial connection, bound the chief and the clan together. It had never recognised this tie, and, in the case of the Dunmaglass succession, it was not very long ago declared, on the highest judicial authority, and after careful and antiquarian investigation, that the law knew of no such corporation or body as a clan, could not define it, and could not, therefore, give effect to a provision in a deed which confined the succession to an estate to the members of Clan Chattan. But, by the opening up of the country, and the visible exhibition of the powers of the Central Government, in the shape of garrisons all over the country, it brought home, to chief and clansman alike, that the most powerful clans could effect nothing, either against the Government or against hostile clans, and that the clan tie had passed from a powerful fact, which enabled a few gentlemen, with a total revenue of about £6000— for that was the rental of the estates which passed under the charge of the Commissioners on forfeited estates after the rebellion-to

raise a powerful army, and almost to upset the Government of Great Britain, into a sentiment which, however pleasing, could produce no practical result. The chief had thus practically revealed and brought home to him the fact that he was, in the eye of the law, at least, but the owner of the soil, but, also, that he was the absolute owner, with no power over his tenants but the power to exact rent or to remove them; while, to the clansman, it was equally brought home that he had no right to the land on which he and his ancestors had resided from time immemorial, but in respect of the rent which he paid-a rent which he soon practically found could be increased at the will of the landlord, unless when there was the protection of a lease, and, against the raising of which, the clansman had no remedy but to relinguish his possession. The military leader, by divine right, of a tribe of soldiers, every man of whom went every day armed and wearing the tartan and badges of his tribe, was transformed into a mere landlord entitled to exact rent, and the armed clansman was transformed into a mere cultivator or herdsman, forbidden to wear arms or to wear the distinctive tartan of his tribe.

Here was a change of relations, calculated to produce great social results; but, naturally, these results took some time to manifest themselves. The chiefs who had actually called out their clans and led them in the Forty-Five, and the clansmen who had actually fought under the banners, could not, all at once, cast behind them the old feelings which bound them together, or realise all at once that "the good old times had passed away"; and, when the estates were not forfeited, matters continued for a time to go on as before. On the forfeited estates, too, the

management was lenient; there was no attempt whatever to remove possessors; on the contrary, leases of forty years were, as a rule, granted to the existing possessors, and rents were so leniently dealt with that, in some cases, the tenants were able to send the old rents to the exiled chiefs, as well as to discharge their obligations to the Government. Up till the beginning of the time of which we are treating, therefore, there was little actual change in the possession of land or in the social relations of the people. The mould in which the social system had been cast, and which had hitherto protected it, was removed, and the struc

ture, deprived of its protection, was left to the influence of causes intended and calculated to break it up, but which were now only beginning to show their effects. Let us endeavour to realise, then, what this system was.

We find, then, all over the Highlands at this time, a social system representing the very earliest state of settled society. The whole population was dependent on the land, on its cultivation, and on the pasturage on it of domesticated animals. The land was possessed in property either by the chiefs of clans or by smaller proprietors who had, in various ways, of which we cannot here treat, acquired charter rights to portions of the original tribe lands, and who, although holding these lands under the Crown or under some intermediate feudal superior, to whom they owed feudal service up to the extinction of such services, were yet members of the clan to which they belonged by descent, and had, invariably, and often despite their feudal superiors, followed their chiefs. These proprietors were resident on their estates, parts of which they held in their own hands, and cultivated, or managed the cattle on them, by their own servants. Next in social rank to these came the tacksmen, as they were called, who held considerable tracts of land for payment of rents in money and kind. These were the gentlemen of the clan; they held their possessions from father to son, and were often men of great power and influence— sometimes leaders of distinct septs. Next to them came the smaller tenants, holding, sometimes, and perhaps principally, of the tacksmen as sub-tenants, and sometimes direct of the proprietor. These were of various degrees, and, as a rule, they lived in small communities, holding the arable land in run-rig and dividing it every year, and possessing the pasture attached to the holding in common; and, beneath these, were cottars, who held houses and small patches of land from the landlords, the tacksmen, or the sub-tenants, and paid for these almost entirely in services, and the servants, or scallags, who also received the great part of their remuneration in the possession of a house, a small piece of land— which they were allowed one day in the week to till-and in food. And, besides all these, there was a class who cultivated pieces of land, receiving the seed from the landlord or tacksman, and receiving as their remuneration a certain portion of the produce,

or who leased cattle, giving for the use of them a return of so much butter and cheese.

The agriculture of this time was rude and primitive. Each farm, whether held by the landlord, the tacksman, or the community of small tenants, was divided into infield and outfield land, green pasture, and hill pasture, and meadow. The arable land, green pasture and meadow, was divided from the hill by a fence called the head dyke. The infield land was cultivated continuously, and the whole manure made on the holding was applied to it. There was no rotation of crops, for turnips were not yet in use, and potatoes were only just coming into use; and, if the infield land was rested at all, it was rested in bare fallow. The outfield land was broke up occasionally, and cropped as long as it yielded a return for the seed, and, when it would no longer do so, it was allowed to rest in grass until it had regained sufficient fertility to bear another series of crops-the meadow lay in patches interspersed among the arable land, and bare a scanty crop of hay. On the green pasture within the head dyke, the milk cows were grazed, and in the hill pasture beyond the houses yeld cattle, sheep, and goats were grazed in early Summer and Autumn. The old wooden plough was in general use on the larger farms, worked by a number of horses, yoked one in front of another; but on small patches of land, and among the smaller tenants, the cas-crom, or hand plough, which is still in common use in the West and in the Islands, was the principal instrument of agriculture. Water mills had long been in use, but the quern, or hand mill was still in general use, and corn, instead of being threshed out and dried in a kiln before being ground, was still very commonly graddaned, that is, burnt out of the husk either by burning the straw and ears together, or burning the ears alone, and thus separating the corn and drying it by one operation, tedious, no doubt, if only the husks were burned, and wasteful if the straw also was burned. This was a system of agriculture primitive and rude enough, but it must be borne in mind that the only object was to produce enough grain for domestic use, and that fifty or sixty years earlier the description, with the exception of the quern and the process of graddaning, would apply equally to the South of Scotland.

The great wealth of the community consisted in cattle; sheep