to resume the thread of our narrative, and Time
must be held to have galloped over the interval. Craving, therefore, the
privilege of my caste, I entreat the reader's attention to the continuation of
the narrative, as it starts from a new era, being the year immediately
subsequent to the British Revolution.
    Scotland had just begun to repose from the convulsion occasioned by a change
of dynasty, and, through the prudent tolerance of King William, had narrowly
escaped the horrors of a protracted civil war. Agriculture began to revive; and
men, whose minds had been disturbed by the violent political concussions, and
the general change of government in church and state, had begun to recover their
ordinary temper, and to give the usual attention to their own private affairs in
lieu of discussing those of the public. The Highlanders alone resisted the
newly-established order of things, and were in arms in a considerable body under
the Viscount of Dundee, whom our readers have hitherto known by the name of
Grahame of Claverhouse. But the usual state of the Highlands was so unruly, that
their being more or less disturbed was not supposed greatly to affect the
general tranquillity of the country, so long as their disorders were confined
within their own frontiers. In the Lowlands, the Jacobites, now the undermost
party, had ceased to expect any immediate advantage by open resistance, and
were, in their turn, driven to hold private meetings, and form associations for
mutual defence, which the Government termed treason, while they cried out
persecution.
    The triumphant whigs, while they re-established Presbytery as the national
religion, and assigned to the General Assemblies of the Kirk their natural
influence, were very far from going the lengths which the Cameronians and the
more extravagant portion of the non-conformists under Charles and James loudly
demanded. They would listen to no proposal for re-establishing the Solemn League
and Covenant; and those who had expected to find in King William a zealous
Covenanted Monarch were grievously disappointed when he intimated, with the
phlegm peculiar to his country, his intention to tolerate all forms of religion
which were consistent with the safety of the state. The principles of indulgence
thus espoused and gloried in by the Government gave great offence to the more
violent party, who condemned them as diametrically contrary to Scripture; for
which narrow-spirited doctrine they cited various texts, all, as it may well be
supposed, detached from their context, and most of them derived from the charges
given to the Jews in the Old Testament dispensation, to extirpate idolaters out
of the promised land. They also murmured highly against