The Lowlanders are intensely industrious and of a very constructive genius. They have made the Clyde navigable up to Glasgow, they are bridging over the Forth and the Tay, they build great manufacturing towns, and are famous for all kinds of shipping. On the side of intellect and art we all know what they have done. In proportion to their small numbers, they are the most distinguished little people since the days of the ancient Athenians, and the most educated of the modern races. All the industrial arts are at home in Glasgow, all the fine arts in Edinburgh, and as for literature, it is everywhere. The contrast with Highland indolence, apathy, and neglect, could scarcely be stronger if London itself were transported to the banks of the Clyde. Yet a Frenchman lumps together Highlanders and Lowlanders and calls them “_les Écossais_,” and thinks that they all wear the tartan and the kilt. It is true that he knows little else about them except that their beautiful Queen was beheaded, and that “_en Écosse l’hospitalité se donne_.” There is a greater difference, in the essentials of civilisation, between the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland than there is between the Lowlands and the county of Lancaster. [Sidenote: Lancashire.] [Sidenote: Population of Lancashire.] Lancashire has so strong a character of its own that it may almost be considered a nation. The accident by which it is a Royal Duchy, as Wales is a Principality, may be an additional excuse for considering Lancashire, for the present, as a little nation within its own frontiers. It is fairly comparable in wealth and population, not only to the Lowlands but to the entire Kingdom of Scotland. The population of Lancashire in 1881 was to that of Scotland as thirty-four to thirty-seven, and to that of Switzerland as thirty-four to twenty-eight, in round numbers. [Sidenote: Lancastrian Characteristics.] [Sidenote: Energy.] [Sidenote: Encouragement of Literature and Art.] [Sidenote: Protestantism in Lancashire.]