What were the earlier and latter surroundings of those who so struggled; how from inconsiderable beginnings the nation acquired that moral and intellectual superiority which induced Professor Rivet, a learned foreigner, early in the seventeenth century, to speak of the 'praefervidum ingenium Scotorum', it has been my object to discover.
Or more plainly, how has a people occupying a mainland 285 miles at greatest length, by 160 miles at greatest breadth, made from age to age a steady and persistent progress?
