Curs?d be the wretch who seized the throne,
And marred our Constitution ;
,4nd curs?d be they who helped on
That wicked Revolution.
?? Curs?d be those traitorous traitors who
By their perfidious knavely,
Have brought our nation now unto
An everlasting slavery.
Curs?d be the Parliament that day,
Who gave their confirmation ;
And cursed be every whining Whig,
For they have damned the nation ! ?
We have shown what the representation of
Scotland was, in the account of the Riding of the
Parliament. By the Treaty of union the number
was cut down to sixty-one for both Houses, and
the general effects of it were long remembered in
Scotland with bitterness and reprehension, and
generations went to their grave ere the long-promised
prosperity came. Ruin and desolation fell
upon the country; in the towns the grass grew
round the market-crosses ; the east coast trade was
destroyed, and the west was as yet undeveloped ;
all the arsenals were emptied, the fortresses disarmed,
and two royal palaces fell into ruin.
?The departure of the king to London in 1603
caused not the slightest difference in Edinburgh ;
but the Union seemed to achieve the irreparable
ruin of the capital and of the.nation. Of
the? former Robert Chambers says :-?? From the
Union, up to the middle of this century, the
existence of the city seems to have been a perfect
? blank ! No improvements of any sort marked the
period. On the contrary,. an air of gloom and
depression pervaded the city, such as distinguished
its history at 7zu former period. A tinge was communicated
even to ;the manners and fahions of
society, which were ,remarkable for stiff reserve,
precise moral carriage, and a species of decorum
amounting almost to moroseness, sure indications,
it is to be supposed, of a time of adversity and
humiliation. . . . In short, this may be called, no
less appropriately than emphatically, the dark age
of Edinburgh.? 1
Years of national torpor and accepted degradation
followed, and to the Scot who ventured south but
a sorry welcome was accorded ; yet from this state
of things Scotland rose to what she is to-day, by
her own exertions, unaided, and often obstructed.
A return made to the House of Commons in 1710
shows that the proportion of the imperial revenue
contributed by Scotland was only z.4 per cent.,
whereas, by the year 1866, it had risen to 14; per
cent. During that period the revenue of England
increased 800 per cent, while that of Scotland
increased 2,500 per cent., thus showing that there
is no country in Europe which has made such
vast material progress ; and to seek for a parallel
case we must turn to Australia or the United
States of America ; but it is doubtful if those who
sat in the old Parliament House on that 25th of
March, 1707, least of all such patriots as Lord
Banff, when he pocketed his AI I zs., could, in the
UNION CELLAR.
