Note 9:1 — Chapter I

Unless such allusions as the following be held as an exception: "The north of England abounds in the best horses of all kinds which are perhaps in the world. In the neighbouring counties, north side of the Tweed, no good horses of any kind are to be met with." Essay on National Characters. But he speaks fully as distinctly and specifically of local matters in France or Spain.

The remarks in the text may probably be considered superfluous, being applicable to by far the greater portion of literary men—as those who have attempted to trace, from the internal evidence of their works, the birthplaces of authors not commemorated by their contemporaries, can testify. Thomson, also a borderer, and a poet of rural life, has scarcely any allusion that bears a distinct reference to the scenery of his childhood, and celebrates the heroism of almost every land but his own. In that age, however, to be national in Scotland was to be provincial in Britain; and unless an author chose to aim at the restricted reputation of a Ramsay or a Pennecuik, he must carefully shun allusions to his native country. But the very existence of this, as a general characteristic, seems to render it worthy of notice in this instance, which must certainly be held, like Thomson's, a peculiarly marked illustration of this feature in literary history. Hume had frequently to record events which had taken place close to his home; and the whole of the surrounding district was full of traditional lore, about the wild life of the borderers in the seventeenth century, which would have afforded valuable materials for his history, and some of his other works, had he been one of those who derive their knowledge from men as well as from books. But these volumes will afford ample opportunity for observing, that he required to place no great restraint on his pen to keep it free of provincial allusions; and that, even in his most familiar letters, though he often speaks of the friends of his youth, he says nothing of the places in which he spent his early days.