School-houses resembling manufactories; monuments, like dovecots or light-houses; churches, no better than ugly barns such has been the character of architecture in Scotland; and although many men of learning and accomplishment have both taught and been produced, and the eminent dead have been truly reverenced, and the Deity devoutly worshipped, in the midst of all this architectural barbarism, it must now be a pleasing spectacle to every lover of his country, and of its improvement, to see the incongruity between its sterling worth, and the wretched aspect of its exterior, in so fair a way of being abolished. The fury of the Scottish Reformation left unfortunately few remnants of those sacred edifices, which, amidst all its corruptions, were among the redeeming points of the Church of Rome. It is, however, a very gratifying circumstance, that what remains is now carefully preserved, and, if possible, restored. An instance is within my own observation. The singular old church of Corstorphine, with its short stubby spire, and uncommonly massive ribbed stone roof, was on the point of being overthrown, and some strange piece of modern Gothic erected in its room, when the taste of Mr Burn interposed, and he has been enabled, by some additions quite in keeping with the original building, and with as little destruction as possible of any of its peculiar features, to preserve, and render serviceable as a church, this venerable monument of the olden times. most mean and unworthy of them. The application of the genius of the architect to sacred purposes is the highest and most impressive use of his art. The same may be said of painting; and I hope this application of that admirable art will not be overlooked by our Scottish artists. To be sure, the National Church gives no encouragement to this use of it. And it is a very delicate thing to interfere with the tastes and peculiar habits of churches, in any of their defects or redundancies. The sacred character of the institution itself is apt to be communicated to their forms, or to their want of forms; and one feels it to be something like sacrilege to make a change in the slightest particular connected with them. I do not feel assured that the Church of Scotland would not lose more than it would gain by the introduction of the organ into its music, or of altar-pieces into the decoration of its sacred buildings. There is a character of peculiar sanctity in the present simplicity of its services. In like manner, the very same additions to the harmony and the ornament of worship, are blended with the most holy services of the sister Church, and are in unison with all the sentiments of her children. There are improvements occasionally, too, suggested in her forms, which may be substantially right, but which have an air of sacrilege to one who is inured to them. Repetitions of the same prayer, in different parts of the same service, have been objected to; yet even the slight change of an omission of this kind would be felt with an unpleasing flutter of the pulse, and beating of the heart, throughout the frame of English piety, and be predicted as an overthrow of the Church, almost as much as Catholic Emancipation itself. I am afraid, then, our Scottish artists must not look to the churches for the reception of sacred pieces; but notwithstanding, the taste of the people may encourage these efforts perhaps the more that they are of the character of forbidden fruit in the interior of the sanctuary. I do not think there is now a Presbyterian family who would have any objection to an organ or sacred music in their drawing-room; nor do I apprehend that they would conceive themselves in danger of falling into the sin of idolatry, although a Madonna of Raphael himself were to look down upon them from its walls. On the con cause they have given to mute material shape and colour- Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb In curls on either cheek play'd; wings he wore "where God, or angel guest, With man, as with his friend, familiar used Painters may have encouraged idolatry, but they have al- It may seem extraordinary to speak of the expression of a divine nature in mere lineament and colouring. Yet this is what the art of Painting has reached, and Poetry has completely failed in; at least if our great Milton be here brought into contrast with a painter, whose name is scarcely of a lower order than his own. Nearly thirty years ago, in a summer's ramble, I found myself accidentally in the neighbourhood of a magnificent but délabré chateau in Northamptonshire. There was no appearance of modern improvement-fine avenues, in be-long straight lines, with scarcely a tree over the whole trary, they are not insensible to the inspiration of religion, both from sounds and expressive forms, and would encourage, I doubt not, their native artists, in this the noblest and most important branch of their art. I can easily couceive, that the great painters of Italy have aided the idolatrous tendencies of their church, park, by any chance, in a free or natural position,-fountains, with their artificial gods thrown down into their basin, and not a drop of water playing! It was Boughton -the seat of the Montague family. I walked through the house, in which, I think, there was no mortal but an old housekeeper, and found little to attract my notice as I wandered from one waste room to another. There might be knights in armour, as old as the Conquest, frowning from the walls, relieved by shepherdesses with their crooks and lambs; but it was not till I came within view of two cartoons of Raphael, that I felt myself spell-bound. How they got into this scene of desolation, where, perhaps, they may be seen once in half a century by some wanderer like myself, I know not. One of these, even, has left so little impression, that at this moment I am uncertain of the subject, though I know it is an incident in the life of St Paul; but whether it is before Felix, or at Athens, that the Apostle is represented preaching, I cannot now remember. But the other-I defy any man to see it, and forget one line or touch of the pencil of fire ever after. It is the astonishing subject of the vision of Ezekiel. There is the living chariot of the prophet: "Wheel within wheel undrawnItself instinct with spirit, but convoy'd By four cherubic shapes." But what even the prophet has not dared to picture, has been conveyed to the inspired glance of the painter. Over the chariot there reclines a horizontal human figure at full length-perfectly composed-unmoving; but the sion of the countenance conveys at once the idea of irresistible power, that requires no effort beyond a word or Volition. expres But this reach of art has been attained once I do not suppose in any other instance and it is too high to be aimed at again. I may say, however, from my recollection of this picture, that contrary to the sublime effect produced by indistinct images of power-if the attempt is made at all to represent the highest power-it must be quite a definite delineation. One expression may be sufficient to do the feat; but it must be an expression caught at once, and without hesitation. This only painting can do. The sacred writers themselves, who use words for their instruments, scarcely aim at more than to describe the adjuncts and concomitants of Deity. Take, for an example, the chapter of Ezekiel in which this vision is recorded, the 18th Psalm, and other sublime passages to the like effect. From the admiration bestowed on the Judith of Etty, and the crowds which went to see the grand picture of Reubens, already mentioned, it may be augured that the encouragement for Scriptural subjects will increase among us, so as to lead our artists into that highest walk of the art; and I hope, in another year, the rooms of our two highly respectable exhibitions will present more specimens of that kind. TRADITIONARY NOTICES OF THE OLD TOLBOOTH AND ITS TENANTS.-CONCLUDED. By the Author of the "Histories of the Scottish Rebellions." THE case of Katherine Nairne, in 1766, excited, in no smalı degree, the attention of the Scottish public. This lady was allied, both by blood and marriage, to some highly respectable families. Her crime was the double one of poisoning her husband, and having an intrigue with his brother, who was her associate in the murder. She was brought from the north country into Leith harbour in an open boat, and, as fame had preceded her, thousands of people flocked to the shore to see her. She has been described to us as standing erect in the boat, dressed in a riding-habit, and having a switch in her hand, with which she amused herself. Her whole bearing betrayed so much levity, or was so different from what had been expected, that the mob raised a general howl of indignation, and were on the point of stoning her to death, when she was with some difficulty rescued from their hands by the public authorities. In this case the Old Tolbooth found itself, as usual, incapable of retaining a culprit of condition. Sentence had been delayed by the judges, on account of her pregnancy. The midwife employed at her accouchement (who, by the by, continued to practise in Edinburgh so lately as the year 1805) had the address to achieve a jail-delivery also. For three or four days previous to that concerted for the escape, she pretended to be afflicted with a prodigious toothach; went out and in with her head enveloped in shawls and flannels; and groaned as if she had been about to give up the ghost. At length, when all the janitory officials were become so habituated to her appearance, as not to heed her "exits and her entrances " very much, Katherine Nairne one evening came down in her stead, with her head wrapped all round with the shawls, uttering the usual groans, and holding down her face upon her hands, as with agony, in the precise way customary with the midwife. The inner door-keeper, not quite unconscious, it is supposed, of the trick, gave her a hearty thump upon the back as she passed out, calling her at the same time a howling old Jezabel, and wishing she would never come back to annoy his ears, and those of There the other inmates, in such an intolerable way. are two reports of the proceedings of Katherine Nairne One bears that she immediateafter leaving the prison. ly left the town in a coach, to which she was handed by a friend stationed on purpose. The coachman, it is said, had orders from her relations, in the event of a pursuit, to drive into the sea and drown her-a fate which, however dreadful, was considered preferable to the ignominy The other story runs, that she of a public execution. went up the Lawnmarket to the Castlehill, where lived Mr , a respectable advocate, from whom, as he was her cousin, she expected to receive protection. Being ignorant of the town, she mistook the proper house, and, what was certainly remarkable, applied at that of the crown agent, who was assuredly the last man in the world that could have done her any service. As good luck would have it, she was not recognized by the servant, who civilly directed her to her cousin's house, where it is said she remained concealed many weeks. In addition to these reports, we may mention that we have seen an attic pointed out in St Mary's Wynd, as the place where Katherine Nairne found concealment between the period of her leaving the jail and that of her going abroad. Her future life, it has been reported, was virtuous and fortunate. She was married to a French gentleman, was the mother of a large and respectable family, and died at a good old age. Meanwhile, Patrick Ogilvie, her associate in the dark crime which threw a shade over her younger years, suffered in the Grassmarket. This genregiment, tleman, who had been a lieutenant in the was so much beloved by his fellow-soldiers, who happened to be stationed at that time in Edinburgh Castle, that the public authorities judged it necessary to shut them up in that fortress till the execution was over, lest they might have attempted, what they had been heard to threaten, a rescue. The Old Tolbooth was the scene of the suicide of Mungo Campbell, while under sentence of death for shooting the Earl of Eglintoune. In the country where this memorable event took place, it is somewhat remarkable that the fate of the murderer was more generally lamented than that of the murdered person. Campbell, as we have heard, though what was called “ a graceless man," and therefore not much esteemed by the Auld Light people who there abound, was rather popular in his profession of exciseman, on account of his rough, honourable spirit, and his lenity in the matter of smuggling. the street. The large white house, nearest the Castle, on the north side of 1 1 Lord Eglintoune, on the contrary, was not liked, on account of the inconvenience which he occasioned to many of his tenants by newfangled improvements, and his introduction into the country of a generally abhorred article, denominated rye-grass, which, for some reason we are not farmer enough to explain, was fully as unpopular a measure as the bringing in of Prelacy had been a century before. Lord Eglintoune was in the habit of taking strange crotchets about his farms-crotchets quite at variance with the old-established prejudices of his tenantry. He sometimes tried to rouse the old stupid farmers of Kyle from their negligence and supineness, by removing them to other farms, or causing two to exchange their possessions, in order, as he jocularly alleged, to prevent their furniture from getting mouldy, by long standing in particular damp corners. Though his lordship's projects were all undertaken in the spirit of improvement, and though these emigrations were doubtless salutary in a place where the people were then involved in much sloth and nastiness, still they were premature, and carried on with rather a harsh spirit. They therefore excited feelings in the country people not at all favourable to his character. These, joined to the natural eagerness of the common people to exult over the fall of tyranny, and the puritanical spirit of the district, which disposed them to regard his lordship's peccadilloes as downright libertinism, altogether conspired against him, and tended to throw the glory and the pity of the occasion upon his lordship's slayer. Even Mungo's poaching was excused, as a more amiable failing than the excessive love of preserving game, which had always been the unpopular mania of the Eglintoune family. Mungo Campbell was a man respectably connected, the son of a provost of Ayr, had been a dragoon in his youth, was eccentric in his manners, a bachelor, and was considered, at Newmills, where he resided, as an austere and unsocial, but honourable, and not immoral man. There can be no doubt that he rose on his elbows and fired at his lordship, who had additionally provoked him by bursting into a laugh at his awkward fall. The Old Tolbooth was supposed by many, at the time, to have had her usual failing in Mungo's case. The Argyll interest was said to have been employed in his favour, and the body, which was found suspended over the door, instead of being his, was thought to be that of a dead soldier from the castle substituted in his place. His relations, however, who are very respectable people in Ayrshire, all acknowledge that he died by his own hand; and this was the general idea of the mob of Edinburgh, who, getting the body into their hands, trailed it down the street to the King's Park, and, inspired by different sentiments from those of the Ayrshire people, were not satisfied till they got it up to the top of Salisbury Crags, from which they precipi. tated it down the Cat Nick. Aged people in Ayrshire still remember the unwonted brilliancy of the aurora borealis on the midnight of Lord Eglintoune's death. Strange and awful whispers then went through the country, in correspondence, as it were, with the streamers in the sky, which were considered by the superstitious as expressions on the face of heaven of satisfied wrath in the event. One of the most remarkable criminals ever confined in the Old Tolbooth was the celebrated William Brodie. As may be generally known, this was a man of respect able connexions, and who had moved in good society all his life, unsuspected of any criminal pursuits. It is said that a habit of frequenting cock-pits was the first symptom he exhibited of a defalcation from virtue. His ingenuity as a joiner gave him a fatal facility in the burglarious pursuits to which he afterwards addicted himself. It was then customary for the shopkeepers of Edinburgh to hang their keys upon a nail at the back of their doors, or at least to take no pains in concealing them during the day. Brodie used to take impressions of them in putty or clay, a piece of which he could carry in the palm of his hand. He kept a blacksmith in his pay, of the name of Smith, who forged exact copies of the keys he wanted, and with these it was his custom to open the shops of his fellow-tradesmen during the night. He thus found opportunities of securely stealing whatsoever he wished to possess. He carried on his malpractices for many years. Upon one shop in particular he made many severe exactions. This was the shop of a company of jewellers, in the North Bridge Street, namely, that at the south-east corner, where it joins the High Street. The unfortunate tradesmen from time to time missed many articles, and paid off one or two faithful shopmen, under the impression of their being guilty of the theft. They were at length ruined. Brodie remained unsuspected, till having committed a daring robbery upon the Excise-office in Chessel's Court, Canongate, some circumstances transpired, which induced him to disappear from Edinburgh. Suspicion then becoming strong, he was pursued to Holland, and taken at Amsterdam, standing upright in a press or cupboard. At his trial, Henry Erskine, his counsel, spoke very eloquently in his behalf, representing in particular, to the jury, how strange and improbable a circumstance it was, that a man whom they had themselves known from infancy as a person of good repute, should have been guilty of such practices as those with which he was charged. He was, however, found guilty, and sentenced to death, along with his accomplice Smith. At the trial he had appeared in a fine full-dress suit of black clothes, the greater part of which was of silk, and his deportment throughout the whole affair was completely that of a gentleman. He continued during the period which intervened between his sentence and execution, to dress himself well and to keep up his spirits. A gentleman of our acquaintance, calling upon him in the condemned room, was astonished to find him singing the song from the Beggar's Opera, 'Tis woman seduces all mankind." Having contrived to cut out the figure of a draught-board on the stone floor of his dungeon, he amused himself by playing with any one who would join him, and, in default of such, with his right hand against his left. This diagram remained in the room where it was so strangely out of place, till the destruction of the jail. His dress and deportment at the gallows were equally gay with those which he assumed at his trial. As the Earl of Morton was the first man executed by the Maiden, so was Brodie the first who proved the excellence of an improvement he had formerly made on the apparatus of the gibbet. This was the substitution of what is called the drop, for the ancient practice of the double ladder. He inspected the thing with a professional air, and seemed to view the result of his ingenuity with a smile of satisfaction. When placed on that terrible and insecure pedestal, and while the rope was adjusted round his neck by the executioner, his courage did not forsake him. On the contrary, even there, he exhibited a sort of joyful levity, which, though not exactly composure, seemed to the spectators as more indicative of indifference; he shuffled about, looked gaily around, and finally went out of the world with his hand stuck carelessly into the open front of his vest. The Tolbooth, in its old days, as its infirmities increased, showed itself now and then incapable of retaining prisoners of very ordinary rank. Within the recollection of many people yet alive, a youth named Reid, the son of an innkeeper in the Grassmarket, while under sentence of death for some felonious act, had the address to make his escape. Every means was resorted to for recovering him, by search throughout the town, vigilance at all the ports, and the offer of a reward for his apprehension. Yet he contrived fairly to cheat the gallows. The whole story of his escape is exceedingly curious. He took refuge in the great cylindrical mausoleum of Sir George Mackenzie, in the Greyfriars' churchyard of Edinburgh. This place, besides its discomfort, was supposed to be haunted by the ghost of the persecutor-a circumstance tress. of which Reid, an Edinburgh boy, must have been well aware. But he braved all these horrors for the sake of his life. He had been brought up in the Hospital of George Heriot, in the immediate neighbourhood of the churchyard, and had many boyish acquaintances still residing in that munificent establishment. Some of these he contrived to inform of his situation, enjoining them to be secret, and beseeching them to assist him in his disThe Herioters of those days had a very clannish spirit—insomuch, that to have neglected the interests or safety of any individual of the community, however unworthy he might be of their friendship, would have been looked upon by them as a sin of the deepest dye. Reid's confidents, therefore, considered themselves bound to assist him by all means in their power against that general foe -the public. They kept his secret most faithfully, spared from their own meals as much food as supported him, and ran the risk of severe punishment, as well as of seeing ghosts, by visiting him every night in his horrible abode. They were his only confidents-his very parents, who lived not far off, being ignorant of the place of his concealment. About six weeks after his escape from jail, when the hue and cry had in a great measure sub sided, he ventured to leave the tomb, and it was afterwards known that he escaped abroad. The subsequent history of the Old Tolbooth contains little that is very remarkable. It has passed away, with many other venerable relics of the olden time, and we now look in vain for the many antique associations which crowded round the spot it once occupied. LETTERS FROM THE WEST. No. III. NOTES OF A TOUR. I LIKE every body else, I never set out on an excursion, but I resolved to write down the observations which occurred to me, when what was either new or striking in character or scenery presented itself. Like every body else, I never fully fulfilled these laudable intentions. have beside me as many half-filled and wholly soiled memorandum-books, as I have taken journeys in my lifetime. The first page is always very completely crammed, and carefully written. It comprises the date and hour of my departure, and a resolution to employ all its successors to equal advantage. The second is more sparse, and only one-half of the third is obscured with pencilling. Neither the fourth nor fifth usually have a word upon them, but about the tenth I scribble some verses, resolving to fill up the preceding blanks with sober prose detail at the very first leisure moment—a period of time which, rapidly as time proceeds, has never yet arrived. I have just been looking over the disjecta membra of my latest journal, and they are at your service. July —, 1829.—A good horse beneath me, a cloak buckled before, and a valise behind, a pleasant companion at my side, and ominous appearances of rain above me— off I set. In an hour I am very comfortably wet through. My route lies through Dumbarton. From the inn at Bowling to that at Dumbarton is the longest space, called two miles, on this side of the Equator. Literature is at Death's door in Dumbarton. The public library is cheek-by-jowl with the churchyard. The bridge is a fine example of building in the style of the first letter of the alphabet. The nephew of the King of France, who crossed it the other day, thought of the famous exploit of his ancestor, who was known to "March up a hill-and then march down again." Found a tollman whose faith was great; for, failing his copper currency, he had not brass to ask credit for the balance but gave it! Smollett is a name delighted in everywhere but at Renton. The pillar that was reared to his memory, is no longer a monument to him-but of his descendants. Their taste for ruins surpasses Lord Elgin's. But they are not friends to Letters. Champollion, or Dr Browne, must visit and decipher the inscription. The air of Bonhill is injurious to marble everywhere, but in the hearts of landholders. However, a monument, which, like the present county member, stands up, but says nothing, is, like him, likely soon to be shelved. It will make capital gate-posts. Rain again. At Bellevue no prospect. At Belleretiro no shelter. Luss in the dark, but lightened by a kind welcome. Memorandum-Marry and get children, and send them hither to climb the braes, and get the first branches of education and mountain ash. Luss water is perilously strong. Headach. Inveruglas a pattern glen. The roads here become less ambitious, and more convenient. Surveyors have discovered that hills, like fat landladies, are as broad as they are long." The name of the pint of Firkin might suggest ideas of herring-barrels to a Scotch Cockney. The road goes round it like a hoop ;we went with a halloo! Stockgown-a spot for a poet ! May its possessor live as long as he likes, and leave it to me afterwards! Many a sheep's eye I've thrown at it— coincident taste with the Dean of Faculty, who longs for it too. Pleasing, but provoking. Fifty to one on him against me! Meanwhile, let me express myself thus: 66 SONNET. "Tis ever thus !-Let me but dream a hope, And sleep flies frighten'd ere the glimpse of day; To live an alien-gladdening not its home! Where I had hoped in manhood's prime to come, And lay my brow upon the lap of Peace 'Twill be another's, ere that noontide hour! But let all sorrow for his fortune cease'Tis pride to love like him-lord of his soul's high power! ful now. Tarbet-English grooms unrivalled in rubbing down and swearing up. and astonish honest Donald, by taking as much care of a Work as fast as they talk though, horse as a baby, and washing it more than ever was done to 66 wee Duncay." Off Arrochar-Its inn now a residence for an English party, who have made it their home. Glencroe" Rest and be thankful" removed from its site. There we can neither rest nor be thankA shoe and two hours lost. Highland roadmenders exhibit the march of mind in the waggon they now pig snugly in, in place of sleeping on the heather. Sixteen go into very small space. Cairndow-Drunken blacksmith, choleric little landlord, with glimpses of pretty nieces through a window, and of a dinner two hours off. Job. Farther draughts on patience dishonoured. "No effects" in the stomach. Short landlord and long like Sterne's Slawkenbergius, with arms akimbo, and noses Good dinner after all.-Enter Inverary complaints. fiery points, as seen through the gloom, ominous of an lengthened out by our cigars. additional consumpt of herrings next morning. Second Walker's inn worthy of all comsight right for once. mendation; The natives deem the A forts of a city. Dalmally.-A strive between the rain the plenty of the Highlands, with the comand our horses which should pelt fastest. Every body at church-even the ostler. The houses left behind, though; and, as Philpotts once said at Durham, "Not a stall to be had."-" Every man his own groom." torrent of eloquence and rain. Highlanders' hearts more easily penetrated than their plaids. Service over, but spiritual consolation still in great request. The dinner such only as Dalmally could furnish. Salmon firm as a rock, and flaky as snow; and mutton melting in the mouth, like-Heaven knows what! Tacksman of the Route by Glenfalloch to Tarbet.-Ride down the Gare Loch, an epitome of Highland scenery. Helensburgh— Check shirts ominous of a regatta-likely to be soine sailing matches of more kinds than one; and probably a row or two-Gigs and giggling-picked up some knowledge of signals—and the following staves: THE YACHTMAN'S CHANT. a jubilee of two years were given to the fish, they would be as plenty as ever in Scotland. Ride to Bunaw-finest in the world-site of the "Highland Widow's" cottage. Blessings of the new act for churches. Good taste of their designs. Manses excellent. Sleep in one. Silent thanks to the absent and excellent owner. Connel Ferry -Scylla and Charybdis, and Corrievreckan.-Berigo- The echo of the signal gun is booming o'er the brine, Get poetical. nium. SONNET WRITTEN ON BERIGONIUM. This, then, is Berigonium where I stand, A mass of rock, with turf half cover'd o'er, Than but to turn and gaze on every hand, Shaping the clouds of far past Time to form, Would picture here a citadel of storm, And halls of high debate on lofty themes. My faith's, perchance, as baseless, but more rareI see thee as thou art-for ever bright and fair! Lochnell-lately made a ten hours' ride from Edinburgh-bet gained and leather lost. Spa at Durar-the whisky preferable. Highland baronet resorting to it for a sea-bathing place-five miles inland. French wanderers in these wilds a tune on the hurdy-gurdy. Malbrook in Appin !-Portnacroish-terrible breakfast-Appin House the bird that drew me thither flown! Ballachulish. Good fortune, kind friends-distinguished guests venerable prelate-scientific field officer-and myself in a short coat! Thank Heaven, however, here a man's fitness for society was not measured any longer by the length of his tail! Loch Leven-Steam-boats penetrating now to the remotest wilds, wherever water can carry them, or lowland comforts have penetrated. Why is there not one on Lochawe? Gigantic or Cyclopean slate quarries, where the earth turns itself outside in. "Glencoe Inn!"-Time hath wrought strange alterations. But even yet, to enquire after the site of the massacre, makes the lonely dweller in the glen walk more erect in the consciousness of having inherited a wrong, and that is about the same as being heir to an honour. The road up the valley-disappointed till near the summit of the ascent. There, it is all that imagination could picture, or Martin copy. King's House-not a blush on the sky, but enough on the landlord's face-Bardolph outdone the day grew sunny in the light of his counteInveruran -a forest without trees or trees like Witherington" in doleful dumps"-fighting with time" upon their stumps." Tyndrum-before which, fifty waterfalls, that would any one of them make the Vauxhall men's fortune-a good inn, and surpassing mutton chops-lack of employment was supplied by what was thus nance. WRITTEN ON A WINDOW-SHUTTER AT THE INN OF TYNDRUM. While idle scribblers give to crystal fame Which the next hand may wipe from off the wall: Our barks are riding fast, yet free, all ready in their line; Up with the anchors, boys, and spread the canvass to the spray, 'Twill have a wetting yet, I guess, ere we are half our way. The red cross of our native land is flying at the main, And its music sends across the wave a fond and farewell strain : Ha! now she scuds before the breeze! with every bound she gives Each gallant heart more quickly heaves, each man more keenly lives. Away! away! no reefing here; we'll take all winds that blow, Unless they split to ribbons up our wings, as on we go; And if they do, why then we'll scud, as we have done before, With stout hearts in our chequer'd guise, and stout hands at the oar. gun; To land! though there more perils wait from yonder lovely throng, Than e'er was known upon the deep, in story or in song. The inn at Helensburgh is excellent-the eatables and drinkables worthy of Meg Dods, whose mantle Mrs Bell has certainly caught, and made the Baths equal to the Cleikum. Dunoon.-The old castle guarding the new, like a veteran warding the sleep of beauty-the seat of rude kings and domineering prelates now the retreat of a personification of the power that has supplanted the sway of both these elements of might-commercial wealth and intelligence.-Apropos of prelates: INSCRIPTION FOR THE CAIRN ON THE BISHOP'S SEAT, DUNOON. Read, while you rest, ye who have hither climb'd, Obeying thus the impulse all have feltThe universal passion of the hillsTo stand with but the arch of heaven above, And, as if midway to't, look down on earth!This lofty place of rest is strangely named The Bishop's Seat; Oh! how unlike the stall Where full-fed prelacy may slumber soft! Yet hath it been so call'd because 'tis beautiful, And fretted o'er with Nature's cunning carving! Round it the turf is softer than the seat Souls have been lost to place the body on; And then, 'tis lofty as ambition's wish, And looks upon a little world below, Sleeping in sunshine, while the lonely wind Frets round its cold domain in sullen pride; And higher yet before it mountains climb, Whose summits look more beautiful than this, As doth the Arch-Episcopalian crown To him whose mitre hath a meaner peak !— Yet once again 'tis strangely term'd, for here No bulky priest hath ever sat him down. Yet, were mine office to exhort mankind, Oh! what inspired homilies might I Speak with the trumpet-tongue of highest stance, Gathering, in gladness, from the hills around, The loftiest earthly aids to loftier thoughts! |