THE RECESS AUTUMNAL RELAXATION HIGHLANDS AND LOWLANDS; BEING THB HOME CIRCUIT VHRSVS FOREIGN TRAVEL, A SERIO-COMIC TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES. BY FREDERICK FAG, ESQ. OF WESTMINSTER. " Proximorum incuriosi longinqua sectamur." PLIK. LONDON: LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMAN, PATERNOSTER-HOW. MDCCCXXXir. LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES, Dulii Street, Lambeth. PREFACE. As the title-page of a book ought to convey some idea of its nature and as a Preface should do little more, the present one will be short. This little volume is the result of autumnal relaxation from the drudgery of avocation in the metropolis. The name of the author, and the spe- cies of drudgery which he undergoes can be of little or no interest to the reader ; and it little matters whether he work with the head or the hand with the pen or the brush with the hammer or the hand-saw. It boots not whether he carries a hod of bricks or a bag of briefs whe- ther he is most conversant with the composition of paints, potions, or protocols. A tourist has one principal object in view to render him- self agreeable both to those who travel the same circuit, and to those who only travel round their own libraries. There are some other objects, however, of considerable importance. During the last twenty years, the tide of English tourists has annually rushed up the Rhine winded through the valleys of Switzerland scaled the mighty Alps and spread over the plains of fair Italy. More of our nobility and gentry have stood on the Jura and the Rhighi, than on Skiddaw and Snowdon on the Palatine Hill than on Salisbury Crags. More of them have ascended the Simplon and the St. Bernard, than Ben-Cruachan and Ben-Lawers. They have become more familiar with Como and Lugano, than with Loch Tay and Loch Lomond. Many more of our countrymen have visited Grindenwalde than Glencoe the Temple of Neptune at Psestum, than the Temple of Nature in Staffa ! The snows of Mont Blanc have more frequently been pressed by the feet of Englishmen, than the summit of Ben-Nevis. Now, one of the most important objects of travelling, is exercise not of the body merely, but of the mind also and not the passive ex- ercise of perception alone, but the more dignified exercise of reflection, in addition. The moral and physical phenomena which present them- selves on the road, may be considered as flints the intellect of the 2000163 IV PREFACE. traveller as the steel and the sparks elicited by the collision, as the thoughts and observations of the tourist during the journey. It is not so much the design of the following volume to contrast or compare the home circuit with foreign travel, as to show that, at a small expenditure of time and money, our own islands present to the con- templative traveller, or tourist in search of health, pleasure, or infor- mation, a series of scenes and circumstances, not much inferior to those which are presented on a foreign soil. If this object should be even partially attained, the Axithor will have done some service to his country. In a geographical point of view, the Author has necessarily trod in the steps of his predecessors; and when it is remembered that, amongst these were, a Johnson, a Pennant, a Boswell, a MacCulloch, and many others of celebrity, it will be allowed that such footsteps are not less dangerous to follow than those on fairy ground ! But the Author believes that he has lived long enough, and travelled far enough to be able to think for himself, and if his meditations and reflections prove less interesting than those of his predecessors, he ventures to hope that they will not be found less original. One word more, and he has done. He flatters himself that this little volume will prove an acceptable companion (as a prompter to thought and reflection) for those who pursue the same route. F. F. Westminster, 1834. Some few literal errors have escaped notice in the correction of the press. Among others the following: Page 47, line If) from top, for on, read or. 88, for Wally, read Willy. 100, for tottoir, lead trottoir. 161, for of. read off 220, for sise, read size. 221, line C from l.-ottom, after action put a full stop. 237, for " will go," read " will he go." TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. Contemplative view of the northern bank of the Thames, from Battersea to the Tower .... 1 Chelsea Hospital Legion of Honour ib. Penitentiary refuge of the profligate 2 St. Stephen's The STATE GALLEY ; an allegory . . . . ib. Condition of the Galley list of de- fects . . . . ib. Proposals for a thorough repair . 3 Opposition to a thorough repair . ib. Arguments of the opponents . . 4 Attempted compromise . . 5 The Galley docked and repaired . ib. Sailing-trim of the newly-repaired Galley ..... 6 State of the crew . . . ib. Westminster Abbey ... 7 Westminster Hall ... 8 Waterloo Bridge ... 9 Bedlam ... . ib. Somerset Place . . . .10 King's College Milestone . . ib. March of intellect . . . ib. Blackfriars' Bridge . . .11 The Tower . . . . ib. VACATION. Migration from the capital in summer 12 THE TOURIST . . . .14 Paucity of materials for the awful and sublime in England . . . ib. Contrast in other countries . .15 THE STEAMER THE '' GATHERING." Definition of a steamer . . .16 The " gathering " at Greenwich . 17 Muster-roll of the " gathering " . 18 Steam versus stage-travelling . . 20 Pleasures of travelling . . .21 THK RIVER . . . .22 Thames and Tigris compared . . ib. Greenwich Hospital . . . ib. THE SEA. Reflections on Campbell's poem, "The Sea" . . . .23 A sea-view (not Campbell's) from St. Leonard's . . . .25 A sea-view, in humble prose . . 27 FIRTH OK FORTH . . .28 Descriptive sketch of the Forth . ib. NEW HAVEN Scene at landing there . . .29 of age 30 ib. ib. 31 32 34 ib. 35 ib. ib. ib. 36 37 ib. 38 ib. 39 EDINBURGH. Definitions of Edinburgh, by Walter Scott and others . Contemplations on Arthur's Seat The Old and the New Town . . The March of Intellect Tree Knowledge .... Probable effects of knowledge . Modern and Ancient Athens . Building a ruin ruining a building . Monuments on Gallon Hill . . Melville and Trajan ... Burns supplied with marble instead of bread . . . . Athenian ingratitude near home The swinish multitude order and idleness ..... Scotch and_Irish compared Phrenological characteristics of the Scotch New Town Pompeian silence Law, physic, and divinity . . Auki Reekie versus New Town . STIRLING CASTLE. Departing scene at New Haven . 40 Choleraphobia . . . .41 Windings of the Forth . . . ib. View from Stirling Castle . .42 Historical recollections . . .43 BANNOCKBURN. Parallel of Bannockbuni and Marathon 44 CALLANDEU .... ib. The Persian wheel divide el impera ib. Portrait of a Highland inn . . 45 Tempora mutantur for the better . 47 Roman camp formed by nature . ib. THE TROSACHS. The sister lakes composition of the Trosachs . . . .48 View from Ben Venue . . . 4'J Trosachs compared with other lions abroad ..... ib. Locn KATRINE . . . .50 Poetical description of the Trosachs . 50 Helen's bower, and Helen's shower ib. Highland rain, alias waterfall . 51 Estimate of Loch Katrine . .51 Misnomer of the lake its real name 52 Rob Roy's country . . . ib. A young Helen Macgregor . . 53 A prescription without a fee . . 54 Highland economy a female launch ib. Vl CONTENTS, Page LOCH LOMOND . . . .55 Inversnaid a Highland Locanda . ib. Travelling constitutions . . ib. Loch-Lomond steamer . . .56 Steam versus sentiment . . ib. Lake-poets smoked out . . ib. Spirit-gauge of morality . . ib. Estimate of Loch Lomond . .57 THE LEVEN . . . . ib. Smollet's monument ' . . . ib. DUMBARTON . . . .58 Historical recollections . . ib. THE CLYDE . . . .59 Singular view from Dumbarton Castle ib. GREENOCK . . .60 The " tide of human existence " at Greenock . . . . ib. View from the hills behind Greenock 61 HELENBURGH PANNANICH . 62 Hydro-mania of the Jocks and Jennies ib. LOCH FINE HERRINGS . .63 Migrations of the herrings a " tale of the sea" . . . ib. EAST TARBET . . . .64 Isthmus of TarbeU-historical associa- tions . . . . . ib. Redundant population reverie on . 65 A Caledonian optimist . . . ib. Fertility of Loch Scavig ! . ib. The Celestial Empire celibacy . 66 Voltaire's alternative eat or be eaten ib. Relief to redundant population . 67 Cause of redundancy in England . ib. Utility of fisheries . . .68 CHINAN CANAL . . . .69 Hibernian navigation . . . ib. Cyclades in the Sound of Jura . ib. Basaltic walls . '. .". j . ib. CORRIVRECHAN . . . .70 The Caledonian Mahlstrb'm . . ib. Description and cause of the whirlpool ib. GARVELOCH Miss Martineau . 71 Great progress of political economy . 72 INVERARY TO OBAN . . .73 Coup'd'o?il of the town and castle . ib. Solitude and society . . . ib. Large inu, and larger innkeeper . 74 A horse on board wages , f .. . ib. Dumb reasoning . . . .75 View of Loch Awe, Cruachan, &c. . ib. Quadruped reflections on the sublime 76 Valley of Glenorchy . ', . ib. Pass of Ben Cruachan . . ib. Kilchurn Castle revolution in senti- ment . . . . .77 Lorn and Bruce . . . . ib. River Awe . . . .78 Piscatory propensities . . . ib. Taynuilt ib. OBAN. Oban, the Ormuz of the West . 79 Page Virgil's description of Oban . . 79 The advent at Oban (a scene) . ib. The " gathering" (a scene) . . 80 Dunolly ruins . . . ib. The philosophical tinker . . 81 Arts, letters, and religion . . ib. The lords of Lorn . . ib. Salutarium at Oban . . .82 SUNDAY . ib. Sunday that was Sunday that is . ib. Highlanders on Sundays . . 83 Ode to St. Andrew . . . ib. Paley's definition of Sunday . . 84 What Sunday ought to be . . 85 SOUND OF MULL . . .86 Poetical and historical associations . ib. Simile without similitude . . 87 A steamer without steam . . ib. TOBERMOREY . . . ib. Hebridean tempest . . .88 Ben-More and Morven in their cups . ib. LULLABY ; or the SURF-SONG . ib. Madras beach . . . .89 View from Ben More . . .90 Highland illegitimacy . . . ib. Miracles in Mull . . . ib. CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTLAND THF GOBLIN'S ODE . . .91 THE PIBROCH its magical powers . 93 STAFFA FINGAL'S HALL. Sir Walter Scott's poetical character of the Hall . . . .94 Terrific scene in a tempestuous night 95 Thoughts on the formation of Staffa ib. Portentous phenomena at its formation ib. Basaltic bridge from Staffa. to Ireland 96 Palmer's beautiful poem on Staffa . ib. Design or accident ? . . ib. Geological remarks . . .97 Finest view of Staffa . . 98 Astonishing scene on landing . . ib. False portraits by Panckoucke and others 99 Interior of Fingal's Hall . . 100 Panckoucke and his spouse, in Staffa ib. Fairy scene in the cave . . 101 Wild and singular view from the rocks 102 Poetical description, by Palmer . ib. Lines on Staffa, by a nobleman . 103 ION A. Reflections on landing in lona . 106 The ruins and the burying-ground . ib. Antiquarian sacrilege . . .107 Legendary lore . . . . ib. St. Oran's burial alive . . . ib. " Second sight" . . . ib. St. Columba's antipathies to women and cows .... 108 Dr. Johnson's reformation . . ib. The inhabitants of lona . . . ib. CONTENTS. vii Page Black stones coronation oaths . 109 Reformers miracles . . . ib. DUNSTAKKNAGE . . . .110 Ruins, their indications . . ib. Highland castles . . . .Ill Jacob's pillow the coronation stone 112 Storm at Dunstaffnage . . .113 Hospitality of the hut . . . 114 Policy of introductions . . ib. KINO-SELLING versus KING-KILLING 115 Glance at Scottish history . . ib. GI.EN ETIVE, or the ENCHANTED VALLKY . . . . .116 Fits of the stupendous in travellers . ib. Supernatural phenomena in Gleu Etive 117 APPIN TO BALLAHUI.ISH . .118 The Niagara of the North . . ib. Berigonium, the ancient capital . 119 Magnificent scenery . . . ib. St. Mungo's Isle and cemetery . . 120 GLENCO ..... 121 Scenic phenomena in Glenco . . ib. Ossian's birthplace . . . 122 Massacre of Glenco reflections . ib. Horrible "mistake" "Curse of Glenco" .... 123 BLACK-MOOR .... 124 A scene of solitude . . . ib. The Macadamizers . . . ib. TYNDRUM . . . . .125 Cockney fastidiousness . . ib. T.YNDRUM TO KlLLIN . . . 126 High-way robberies . . . ib. Argyle and Breadalbane . . ib. Comparison of climates . . . 127 Moral and physical enjoyments . 128 KILLIN, a lion of the Highlands . 129 River god of Loch Dochart . . ib. Burial ground of a clan . . 130 Moral reflections . . . ib. A Highland innkeeper . . . 131 A limping machiner . . ib. A Highland palaver . . . 132 Penny wise and pound foolish . ib. Scott's character of the Scotch . 133 Critical remarks on this character . ib. Striking trait of Scottish character . 134 DUNKELU valley of the Tay . . 135 Scenery of Dunkeld . . .136 Boswell and Johnson . . . 138 Plantation mania . . . . ib. KlLLICRANKIE . . . ,139 Nuptials of the Tummel and the Tay ib. Romantic scenery of Glen Tummel . 140 Reflections on cataracts . . ib. PASS of KII.LICRANKIE . .141 Hanoverian apprehensions . . ib. Descriptive scenery . . . ib. Disappointment . . . .142 Project of a tour to the NETHER-lands ib. Hints to tourists in Tartarus . , 143 Page Mr. Heraud and Cobbett . .143 The TIMES, the HERALD, &c.,in Tar- tarus ..... 144 Infernal news-room . . . ib. Turk and Tartar in the drop-scene . ib. KlLLICRANKIE tO INVERNESS . 145 Singular scene of wild sterility . ib. A Highland hanging bridge . . 146 Wolf of Badenoch Prince Charles Edward 147 Cairn-gorums, alias Brazilian pebbles ib. Exchange no robbery . . . ib. Ossian 148 Fingal Macpherson ... 149 Field of Culloden reflections . ib. INVERNESS .... 150 Brief characteristics of Inverness . ib. Cholera ecclesiastes ... 151 Strictures on certain religious tenets 152 " Nothing new under the sun " . ib. Divine origin of cholera . . 153 Religio Laici . . . .154 CRAIG PHJJDRIC vitrified forts . 155 Antiquarian absurdities . . ib. TOM-NA-HEURICH . . . 156 Origin of Rip Van Winkle . . 157 CALEDONIAN CANAL . . .158 Geological reflections . . . ib. A national UNDERTAKER . . ib. Stupendous scenery Johnson in Sky 159 Fall of Fyers . . . .160 Odious comparisons . . . ib. Loch Oich and Loch Lochy wild scenery . . . . .161 DEPOPULATION various theories of 162 True theory of Highland depopulation 163 A frightful picture political economy ib. Curious inducements to matrimony . 164 FORT WILLIAM Neptune's Staircase 165 A Highland shower . . . ib, A Highland Bivouac . . .166 Night-cap and slippers on the Caledo- nian Canal . . . . ib. Rise and progress of a Highland town 167 PARALLEL ROADS Glenroy . .168 Geological remarks . . . 169 OBAN to INVERARY . . . 170 Johnson blind, and Boswell stupid . ib. National dialogue . . . 171 A lee-lurch and a safe landing .172 INVERARY to LOCH LOMOND . .173 Highland tactics a widow's appeal ib. Solitary scene Glen Kinglas . ib. Emigration a poet's portrait , 174 Loco-migration political economy .175 Portrait of a Highlander that was . 176 Politico-moral reflections . . ib. Highland character . . . 177 Highlanders Malthusians . . 178 Poor-laws in Scotland . . . 179 GI.ENCIIOE, description of , , 180 The cobbler rock . . , , ib, Vlll CONTENTS. f Page Seven-league boots . . . ISO Hell-valley desolate scene . .181 BEN LOMOND .... 182 Comparative scenery, at home and abroad . . . . . ib. Four views from Ben Lomond . 183 A Greek's description of a Highland climate . . . . . ib. GLASGOW ..... 184 Singular site and appearance of . ib. Aspect of the inhabitants cholera- phobia ..... 185 A harbour on a hill . . ib. Mr. Chambers' curious picture of Glas- gow . . . . . ib. Reflections on the statue of John Knox 186 The Hunterian museum, reflections in the 187 AILSA. Compared with Stafl'a, Sky, &c 188 Stupendous scenery on the western side . . . . . ib. The gull-storm of Ailsa . . 189 The biped and quadruped population ib. Magnificent basaltic columns . . 190 TOURISTS in SCOTLAND . . 191 Severe treatment of Dr. Johnson . 192 Arguments per contra . . . ib. Rev. Dr. M'Nicol's remarks on John- son ... . . ib. Dr. MacCulloch's strictures . . 19-1 MEMORY . . . . .195 Memory influenced by climate . ib. Prairies and Alps compared . . ib. Philosophy of memory . . . 196 Futile complaints of bad memory . 198 Inattention the cause of bad memory ib. Memory a voluntary power curious examples . . . .199 LANARK . .... 200 Owenism, criticisms on . . ib. New Lanark, romantic site of . 201 FALLS of the CLYDE . . ib. Disappointment in waterfalls . . ib. Gorgeous description of the Clyde Falls 202 GRETNA GREEN .... 203 Joint-stock company of Celestials . ib. CARLISLE historical recollections . 204 Wall of Severus, inefficacy of . . ib. ENGLISH LAKES, compared with others 205 A Catholic clergyman's sentiments . 206 Wordsworth .... 207 Beautiful mirror of Grassmere . 208 Climate, and character of scenery . ib. LIVERPOOL .... 209 Characteristics of this emporium Cemeteries, reflections on . . STEAM-CARRIAGE RAIL-ROADS Descriptive sketch of the steam-car- riage ..... Probable effects of steam-carriages in war ..... Effects of steam-carriages in peace . Graphic sketch of journey from Liver- pool to Manchester . . . The starting .... The ascent .... The descent the meetings the Chat- moss . . . . ; J J : The comptroller of the gammon Hint to a reformed parliament MIDLAND MOVEMENTS Buxton Matlock . BIRMINGHAM . . . -fli, KENILWORTH .... The conjuror's scene in Kenilworth . Moral and poetical retribution CHELTENHAM .... The pump-room a scene . -/*(0 The factor . . . . >j)S The nabob .... The disappointed politician . . The boroughmonger . . The Caribbean .... The water-melon . . The highway-man . . The lunatic asylum keeper . . <*i The grey magician . . . Yorick . . . . . The absentees .... The financier .... The registrar .... The man of doubts . . . Whigs, Tories, and Radicals . . M. P.'S ..... JOHN BULL . . . . National characteristics . . Revolutions in sentiment . . Changes of creed . . . The British channel . . . Redundant population . . . Intellectual combination . . Agriculturists versus artisans . . Jury of Bakers . . . . Remedies for pauperism . . Emigration . . . . Alternative emigration ... Diffusion of knowledge . Labour ..... Recapitulation of remedies . Conclusion . . 210 211 212 ib. 213 ib. 214 ib. ib. 215 216 ib. 217 218 219 220 221 223 224 ib. ib. 225 ib. ib. ib. ih. 226 ib. 227 ib. 228 229 ib. ib. 230 ib. 231 232 233 ib. ib. 234 236 ib. 241 ib. ib. 242 243 244 245 THE RECESS, OK AUTUMNAL RELAXATION IN THE HIGHLANDS AND LOWLANDS, 8fc. 8fc. WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. IT was on a beautiful morning in early Autumn) that a small party, ex- hausted by the fever of a London season, and anxious to escape, for a time, from the fury of politics, the terror of epidemics, and the thousand toils and turmoils by which time is frittered away and life ultimately curtailed in the metropolitan vortex, drove up Westminster bridge, and halted on its highest arch. One of the party surveyed, for a few minutes, the northern banks of the Thames, from Battersea to the Tower, with an eye of contemplation rather than of curiosity, and with a countenance in which a La vater might have seen or fancied a series of different emotions, corresponding with the impression of various images impinged on the mental mirror. The physiognomist would probably have read in that countenance more of melancholy than of joy more of pity than of cen- sure more of despondency than of hope more of pain than of pleasure more of disdain than of admiration while the eye glanced rapidly from bridge to bridge, and from object to object. My own eye pursued the same track by a kind of mechanical impulse ; and, pointing to a large building, high up the river, and pleasantly situated between two of its bridges, being backed and flanked with gardens and walks, through which were sauntering a number of uncouthly dressed beings, aged, maimed, and tottering on the verge of life, I asked my companion what it was ? " It is," said he, " the RENDEZVOUS or asylum of the ' LEGION of HONOUR ' of wooden legs, empty sleeves, and unsightly scars of vete- rans, who have shed their blood and defeated the enemies of their counii y 2 PENITENTIARY STATE GALLEY. on every hill and dale, mountain and valley, from the Pyramids to the Pyrenees, from the Tagus to the Texel, from the Ganges and Indus to La Plata and the Mississippi. It is the ' Place de Carousel,' not of drones, and sycophants, consuming the treasures of the state, but of time-worn warriors merrily rehearsing some of the most dangerous acts of their stormy lives, and ' Shouldering the crutch to show how fields were won.' " To a similar question respecting a convent-looking structure situated in a marsh at the foot of Vauxhall bridge, my companion answered : " That is a REFUGE for the PROFLIGATE, where PENITENCE weeps over sins, not because they are wicked, but because they are punishable over crimes, not because they were committed, but because they were detected. It is an asylum, where the most disinterested benevolence is wasted on the most worthless objects ; and where the minimum of advantage results from the maximum of expenditure." From this mansion of repentance the eye wandered eastward till it encountered a massive pile of buildings at the foot of the bridge on which we stood. I asked my fellow traveller for a definition of this structure. " That," he replied, " is the famous DOCK YARD from which has been launched the new or at least, the newly-repaired, STATE GALLEY, or CONSTITUTION YACHT. You may have heard," said he, " of ' The flag that braved, a thousand years, The battle and the breeze.' " I answered, " That every one heard of that flag in a celebrated speech of an illustrious senator." " It would have been wonderful," said he, " if that flag had suffered neither wear nor tear from the hand of time or the assaults of the enemy. The fact is, that it had been so patched and darned by state tailors, that many people declared they could scarcely recognize a single stripe or thread of the original bunting ! But not the flag alone, the vessel which bore it, was considered, by a great majority of the crew, to be in a crazy state ; and architects were ordered to exa- mine and report on her condition. It was represented that she had the dry rot that she was leaky that the ballast had shifted to one side, rendering her liable to upset in sudden squalls that the masts were too tant for the hull that the top-gallant sails and royals were too square, in proportion to the lower and larger sails that the rigging and stays were not well tarred that the ship was over-officered and the crew neg- lected that there were too many marines on board that the IDLERS were far too numerous, occasioning heavy duty to fall on those who kept watch that the captain, and commissioned officers, in all councils of war, battles, or tempests, drowned or despised the voice of the petty officers and seamen that the cabins and wardrooms of the captain and STATE GALLEY. *} officers encroached on the berths and comforts of the men, and forced them to mess on the lower decks, with the disadvantages of bad air and scanty provisions that promotion went on unfairly, the vacancies being generally filled up by favourites of the captain or superior officers, to the discouragement of meritorious men among the crew that many berths were held on board by merely nominal occupants ; so that it was not uncommon for the captain or superior officers to have their horses or even their donkies rated as quartermasters, while the rations and pay went into the pockets of men who did no duty whatever that the provisions and stores were often lent to vessels of foreign nations in distress ; but never returned ; by which, the crew were frequently put on short allowance or obliged to run on tick with Jews and slopmen that drafts were not seldom made from the ship's company to serve in foreign ships and on foreign stations, where their blood was shed, and their pay expended, without any ultimate advantage to themselves or their country that shameful abuses existed in the purser's accounts, since it was well known that dead men chewed tobacco, and vrore slop jackets and shirts for months, or even years, after they had gone to Davy Jones's locker. " For these and a thousand other evils and grievances, the Commis- sioners of Inquiry proposed one single but searching remedy, which was believed to be an effectual cure for present and future ills. It was this : that every man rated A. B., or able seaman, on board, should be en- titled to a vote in the appointment of delegates from the ship's company, to have a voice, if not in councils of war, at least in all important regu- lations relating to the management and internal economy of the vessel and her crew ! " This proposal excited universal uproar among the officers, more especially when it was announced that the captain, a true British tar, had expressed his intention of furthering the measure. The majority of the officers remonstrated in the strongest language, and intimated their determination to resist all alterations and innovations. They asserted that the vessel was perfectly sea-worthy, and wanted no repairs whatever that if she leaked a little, it was no disadvantage, as the bilge-water was thereby prevented from becoming noxious, and the men were fur- nished with exercise at the pumps that the ship had encountered many a heavy gale, and bloody battle, without ever striking her flag or strand- ing on a lee shore that the ballast, when it did shift, always shifted to the weather side, and thus tended to keep the ship steady and stiff on her legs that, in short, all the alleged defects and grievances were either imaginary, or positive advantages. Thus, it was complained that the officers' horses and asses were sometimes rated as quartermasters on board. Well. The occupants of such offices never gave trouble or B2 4 STATE GALLEY. offence to their superiors : it was better to have a few * tame elephants ' on board, than turbulent demagogues, or riotous mutineers. If the stores and provisions, said they, are occasionally lent to foreign vessels in dis- tress, it confers on our ship the honourable distinction of being a ' refuge for the destitute:' if our officers and men are sent to fight in foreign ships, it gives ours a voice in foreign councils of war, and constitutes her a ship of the line in the grand European fleet. " Then, as to the proposed remedy, it was alleged to be ten times worse than all the evils put together, allowing them to be real. If the ship went into dock, upon such a principle, she would be taken to pieces, under pretence of repair, and a new vessel launched, which would neither stay nor wear, but lie like a log upon the water, or run before the wind, ungoverned by helm or sails. Supposing, however, that the vessel came out in any tolerable condition for sea, the proposed plan of sending dele- gates from the crew to assist in measures of internal economy, would destroy all discipline and subordination on board. The common men were only calculated to act passively, in obedience to their superiors, and were totally unfit for deliberation or council. If the delegates from the crew once got footing or voice in council, they would constantly and perseveringly exert their powers in curtailing the authority of the officers and giving undue influence to the brute or numerical force of the ship's company. One of their first objects would be to reduce the number of idlers on board to lessen the pay of the captain and officers and to increase their own allowances of provisions and grog. It was argued that, by these delegates, an attempt would soon be made to abolish the office of CHAPLAIN to the ship, and apply his pay to the maintenance of a SCHOOLMASTER a character totally unnecessary, if not mischievous, in a MAN of WAR. The sailors were known to owe the chaplain a grudge, in consequence of the twopences stopped out of their pay, under the strange name of ' Queen Anne's bounty,' and it was not unfairly inferred that an early opportunity would be taken to dismiss this meritorious officer, and have no more prayers on Sabbath day. " The marines would next be overhauled, and the number of officers inevitably diminished. But the most important objection to the new project had not yet been stated. It was urged that the final result of such a measure would be the concentration of power and influence in the wrong place in the members instead of the head in the crew, instead of the officers on the forecastle instead of the quarter-deck. It was prophesied, and not without some show of reason, that a day would come, when the tragedy of the BRITANNIA would be re-acted. In that fine and first-rate vessel, the reins of discipline had become relaxed the crew got unruly open mutiny broke out the officers were overpowered, and STATE GALLEY. 5 many of them killed the captain (a good-hearted and humane officer, of the name of STUART) was thrown overboard while an upstart com- mander, with an entire new set of officers, elected from among the crew, kept possession of the ship for many years, in spite of the admiralty, and in defiance of the crown itself! " When this last argument was urged, there was great consternation, and tremendous dissension in the wardroom, and even in the captain's cahin. The advocates for a thorough repair of the ship, and a revision of the ' ARTICLES of WAR ' (the Koran of the vessel) were nearly over- powered, and about to resign the contest when it was discovered that, in all parts of the ship, the men had been discussing the subject among themselves, the result of which was, that ' ROUND ROBINS ' from every mess were poured upon the tables of the captain and officers, till they groaned with the load. " In this dilemma, and in momentary expectation of a collision or open mutiny, a valiant trooper, who had formerly done duty on board as captain of marines, and who had seen much service both in the east and in the west, undertook to settle the affair in an amicable manner. His intention appears to have been, to first coerce the blue jackets, and keep them in awe by means of the red coats, and next to haul the ship into dock himself, and have her partially repaired, under the inspec- tion of the Anti-delegate party. To effect this difficult object he chiefly relied on a trusty corporal of his own company, who had often done service to the State. But to the captain's surprise, the corporal, either from despair of success, or from a natural dislike to the nickname of * Corporal TRIM,' declined embarking in the enterprize, and the * bold dragoon,' deserted by his own party, was obliged to relinquish the project, and to throw up his commission in disgust ! " The advocates of thorough repair now had the ball at their own foot hauled the ship at once into dock, amidst thunders of huzzas from the crew dismantled her in a twinkling turned out the condemned stores swept the hold of all rubbish ripped open the seams cut out the rotten timbers gave her a new keel, rudder, and figure-head in short, repaired, or rather rebuilt her from stem to stern, from the kelson to the cross-trees ! This work completed, they overhauled the ' Naval Instructions' examined the ship's books rated none as A.B. but prime seamen disrated all ordinaries, land-lubbers, sweepers, swabbers, lob- lollymen, galley-stokers, skulkers, et lioc genus omne, disqualifying them for voting at the election of delegates ; but thereby constituting a large class of malecontents, ready for riot at the instigation of any daring mutineer." And how does the new State Galley work since her launch, I inquired j* 6 STATE GALLEY. " That," said my companion, " is a problem to be solved by time alone. In the short trips which she first made along the coast, it is said that, in nautical language, ' she griped,' that is, she did not ' steer fine;' but subsequently she made some long voyages with problematical success. In a cruize to the West Indies, she ran down so many of the slavers, and set free so many of the NIGGERS, as almost to knock up the Guinea trade. She then doubled the Cape, passed the Straits of Singapore, encountered a tyffon in the Chinese Seas, sailed up the Tigris to Whampoa, and, with one broadside of her main-deck guns, smashed the Hong-merchant monopoly in Canton, and reduced the price of bohea full sixpence in the pound. " In the course of a cruize to the coast of Ireland also, the State Galley is said to have performed a notable exploit. She captured, sunk, or destroyed ten BISHOPRICS for the good of the Church, the benefit of the Clergy, and the maintenance of Protestant ascendancy. " Among the minor cruizes, too, was a short trip to the mouth of the Scheldt, where the State Galley stood ' BOTTLE-BOLUSR' to a couple of * friends of the Fancy,' who chose to have a regular ' set to' near Antwerp, to prevent the noble art of assault and defence becoming ob- solete, in the piping times of peace. The principals were, DUTCH SAM and JOHNNY CRAPAUD the former of whom, an * ancient ally,' com- plained most bitterly of the British bottle-holder, whom he accused of gross partiality, in laying an EMBARGO on Scheidam, while his antagonist was allowed eau de vie ad libitum. It must be admitted that the charge was not entirely groundless ; and that, on this occasion, our old friend SAM evinced no lack of ' DUTCH courage,' although his ' bottle-holder* kept the * Hollands' to himself, during the combat " A great inconvenience, however, has resulted from an unforeseen circumstance the eternal clack, or JABBER, of the new delegates, who shove in their oars on all occasions, as if they were dealing out long- winded rope-yarns in the galley. The captain of the waist, too, (a part of the ship that always contains a number of ordinary characters) has given great trouble ; threatening to knock away the companion-ladder cut off the principal communication with the quarter-deck and have a PALAVER of his own, under the gang-ways and forecastle. " A brace of delegates from the after-guard, also, who had been addling their brains with the * Pilgrim's Progress' and ' Wesley's Sermons,' proposed, to the utter astonishment of the crew, that no grog should be served out on the * Lord's day' (though every seaman knows that there is no Sunday in nine fathoms water) that the coppers should not be heated on the Sabbath that no pease soup or ' dog's body' should be cooked on that day that no mustering or parading on the WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 7 quarter-deck, gangways, or forecastle should take place and that a jig or bull-dance in the waist, on a Sunday evening, should be punished by confinement in the black-hole ! " It is said that since the ship was docked and the Articles of War amended, the crew are far from being united or contented. This was to be expected. The finest ship that ever stemmed the ocean's wave, and the best code of discipline that ever was invented, will not make a sea life pleasant, or the water always smooth. The ardent, and therefore unreasonable expectations of one part of the crew will be disappointed and it is to be hoped that the extravagant anticipations of revolt and mutiny, entertained by the other party, will not be realized. Every ship requires docking, from time to time; and if the officers, from self- interest or prejudice, resist all repair of a vessel till the crew mutiny and force them into harbour, they must abide the consequences. " It is, however, to be borne in mind, that there is always a large list of half-pay officers on shore, who make it their business to criticize the conduct of those in commission afloat; and petition the Admiralty to have them superseded, so that they themselves may get into their berths, on full-pay. Experience teaches that when a change of officers takes place, the new batch either pursues the same measures which they cen- sured in their predecessors, or run into others still more experimental or extravagant. But the new State Galley has a certain trim, a sailing- guage, and a capacity or incapacity for bearing canvass, which cannot be materially affected by any kind of helmsman, whether delegate or anti- delegate and this circumstance renders a change of officers of much less consequence, as to the general navigation of the State Galley, than before she was docked and repaired." I endeavoured to draw from my companion a more special opinion, as to the future destinies of the CONSTITUTION YACHT but in vain. He briefly remarked that, " what had passed was HISTORY what is to come is PROPHECY and prophetic inspiration is no more." I fixed my eyes on the venerable cathedral, near Westminster-bridge, which towers in Gothic pride over all the neighbouring edifices. My companion seemed to anticipate my wishes, and left me no time to reflect or to solicit reflections. " On that sacred fane," said he, " it does not become me to comment. It is evident that it has been under the hand of REFORMERS, and has experienced changes, both irtside and out; but what its future destiny may be, is only known to that BEING, for whom incense once smoked on its altars and to whom the pealing anthem still pours the notes of praise. " But," continued he, " there is one other temple in the vicinity, erected to a subordinate, but a very benevolent deity (JUSTITIA) on LAW COURTS. which it may be no sacrilege to comment. You may perceive," said he, " many of the priests of the temple sauntering at this moment about the portals. They are a very numerous brotherhood. Their costume, you observe, is sable and ermine with heads like swans and bodies like ravens indicating their avocation that of making white appear black, and black white, according to the desire or the sacrifice of the novice. The most remarkable feature in the discipline of the parti-coloured fra- ternity and their tutelary goddess, is the MEANS by which they arrive at their ENDS. Thus, facts are always elicited there through the agency of fiction. Error is consecrated by precedent, and thenceforward takes rank with truth feuds and quarrels are adjusted by fresh infusions of animosity words are manufactured and sold by the dozen or by the foot, with little regard to euphony or intelligibility brevity is studied and taught on the most approved system of circumlocution the scales of justice are always held, in equilibria, by the blind goddess, indicating that neither party shall gain by the suit, but that the profits shall be equally divided between the officiating templars. The meshes of the criminal net are generally too fine to catch any but the small fry of sinners ; magnitude of offence being often a security against severity of punishment. " In this venerable temple, the ' wisdom of our forefathers' has been accumulated at compound interest, till the depot of precepts and prece- dents has become more intricate and inexplorable than the catacombs of the Nile choked up with the mummies, the dust, and the lifeless rem- nants of all shapeless and unutterable things ! '' Yet within the walls of this edifice, we every day hear and see the most astonishing specimens of oratory, eloquence, and ingenuity. The prizes are fame and fortune. The disputants, by the laws of their order, are not allowed to choose their subject, nor even the side of the subject which they are to support. They are bound to defend vice, infamy, and crime, with the same ardour and enthusiasm, as they would advocate the cause of virtue, honour, and probity in distress. They enact their parts, as if on the stage ; but without the aid of author or prompter. Though their objects are selfish, their feelings artificial, and their passions feigned ; yet their intentions are pure, their actions conscientious, and their labours beneficial. Thirteen arbiters sit on the bench, to decide the question and adjudicate the prize. The senior or supreme judge is always deaf (the Goddess of Justice herself being blind), and hears not the orations of either of the advocates. These last, therefore, never address themselves to him ; but to the other twelve. Strange to say, the deaf judge takes upon himself to sum up the merits of the case, leaving the decision, however, to the inferior personages. Thus, betweep a blind WATERLOO-BRIDGE BEDLAM. 9 goddess, a deaf judge, a brace of hired orators, and a dozen of arbiters, (who are often no judges at all) the" property, the liberty, the honour nay, the life of a British subject is summarily disposed of ! " It is maintained, and probably with truth, that the complexity, the incongruity, and even the absurdity of the machinery, combine to make the engine ' work well.' It has certainly worked long, and perhaps well at least for the mechanics ; but a master-operative is now said to be at work in contriving a simpler apparatus for the distribution of justice. The bandage is to be taken off the eyes of the goddess and the deaf judge is to be restored to perfect audition !" Looking eastward from Westminster-bridge, the eye naturally rested on WATERLOO. " That noblest piece of architecture," said my companion, " that ever spanned a majestic river, derives its name from one of the fiercest battles that was ever fought between the ablest generals that ever planted squadron in the field a battle which decided the fate of kingdoms and kings, by deciding the destiny of their arbiter an ARBITER, whose meteor ascension, meridian, and fall whose stormy life and inglorious death, have left on the imperishable page of history the most instructive moral lesson the most impressive example of retributive justice, that has ever been recorded or imagined by prophet, bard, or sage a warrior, against whom armies had little chance, and the elements themselves but a doubtful conflict, more frequently experiencing reverses than victories ! That bridge is equally calculated to exalt, and to repress the pride of man. It illustrates the triumph of art over natural obstacles to inter- course and commerce, in peace : the name is associated with the de- structive ravages of war, and the thirst of power, where men who were invincible in the field by hosts of enemies, have been defeated in the closet by their own ambition. That bridge teaches a great moral lesson to mankind. We are told not to put our faith in PRINCES. The granite arches of that noble structure forbid our putting faith in POPULACES. He who withstood the iron storm of balls, in many a bloody field, for the preservation of his country, was destined to bear the ignoble showers of mud and stones from his degenerate countrymen ! Our schoolboys can descant on Athenian ingratitude, and the fate of Aristides ; while our citizens can cross the bridge of Waterloo, -without blushing for their treatment of a Wellington ! " I pointed to a massive structure, with grated windows, resembling a prison, and situated on the south side of the river, opposite Waterloo- bridge. " In that edifice," said my companion, " MAN exhibits the great criterion, the grand characteristic distinction between himself and the brute creation loss of reason. Animals never become insane. They cannot lose that which they never possessed. Instinct is an humbler 10 SOMERSET-PLACE MARCH OF INTELLECT. boon than reason ; but its possessor cannot abuse it, alter it, or be de- prived of it." Beyond the bridge, the eye rests on a magnificent pile of buildings, stretching along the Thames, and inclosing within its wings an immense area, where whole battalions might march and countermarch, without collision or interruption. " That," said my companion, " is a palace too large for a prince and therefore it has become the residence of a whole colony of kings or at any rate, of very great men, all GOVERNORS, if not of provinces, at least of departments. These magnates have their levees, their audiences, their crowds of suitors ' thronging prefer- ment's gate' and, as they execute, if they do not plan, important measures of state, they naturally consider themselves as great states- men. A long peace has thinned their ranks and curtailed their revenues a war will draw them forth like the offspring of the dragon's teeth from the ground. Their multiplication will be ominous for the tran- quillity of nations, and indicative of new taxes, and expenditure of human life." What, I inquired, is that slender and upright building, apparently a new wing to Somerset-place ? " It is," replied my companion, " a MILESTONE." Indeed ! " Yes," he proceeded, " it is the second mile- stone on the new rail-road, now cutting through the metropolis for the MARCH of INTELLECT. The first stone stands near St. Pancras, and there stands the second, on the banks of the Thames. Why should not INTEL- LECT be conveyed by steam as well as other and heavier articles of mer- chandize ? One of the Leading vehicles of this valuable commodity has been worked by steam for some years, and several others have followed the same path. But intellect is likely to be worked and conveyed by a much more subtle and powerful agent than steam. A modern philosopher has demonstrated, before the Royal Society, that THOUGHT or volition is nothing more than an electric aura conveyed along the nerves; why then should not words be despatched along wires, according to the pro- posal of Mr. Babbage, not indeed by steam, but by a galvanic battery ? When, therefore, the dome of St. Paul's shall be converted into a gene- ral and twopenny post-bag, and letters are thence shot to every part of the metropolis and the kingdom, along metallic conductors, then will the speeches of members in the reformed Parliament be read in Birming- ham and Manchester, during their actual delivery in Westminster, and constituencies will be able to counsel their representatives in the very heat of debate. But to return. It is intended that the rail-road shall diverge, in various directions, to the principal towns and cities of the empire. It is proposed to pass by, not through, Oxford and Cambridge, the soil of those places not being deemed eligible for thoroughfares of BLACKFRIARS-BRIDGE THE TOWER. 11 this kind, and their foundations not being considered perfectly secure. How far and how fast intellect may travel by this new road to the east- ward and southward, it is useless to speculate. Moral, like physical epidemics, have a tendency to spread towards the west. It will be much less difficult to carry this kind of rail-road across the Atlantic, than across the Dwina or the Danube. It is highly probable that the Kan- garoo will precede the Cossack in the march of intellect." On the next bridge that met the eye, we expected to see a long pro- cession of sable monks (as its name would import) instead of which, we beheld a tumultuous throng of enormous bullocks (a far more useful kind of cattle by the way, and not much more lusty) rushing furiously into the very heart of the city, and threatening to immolate the pas- sengers whom they met on their way to the scene of slaughter ! We are much, more prone to imitate the frivolities than the wisdom the vices than the virtues of our neighbours ; otherwise the Abbatoirs of Paris would have shamed out of existence the shambles of Smithfield, where the senses are offended, and the public health endangered, by the hecatombs 'of animals reeking in their gore, in the very centre of an overgrown metropolis ! Passing over the rival, but not the equal of Waterloo ; and glancing at the holy symbol of our religion surmounting the rival, but not the equal of St. Peter, our attention was arrested for a moment on a strange mass or medley of buildings, antique, middle-aged, and modern, sur- rounded by moat, and defended by drawbridge, turret, and bartizan. " That," said my companion, in his usual metaphorical style, " is a Golgotha, or place of skulls. Within those insulated towers, more crowned heads have been struck off, than the heads of subjects, even in the decapitating reign of Henry the Eighth, or of the bloody Queen Mary. There is not a doubt that the head of your own Patriot King will come to the block on that very spot." I glanced at the great body of the metropolis, stretching far beyond the range of the eye, and now nearly enveloped in the clouds of smoke that ascended from its myriads of chimneys ; but my companion shook his head, and pointing to the green hills of Kent, " Let us fly," said he, " from this Pandemonium to the lakes or the mountains to the wolds or the ocean, where, like the Indian relieved, for a brief space, from torture, we may recruit the powers of mind and body, so as to encounter new cares, to endure new toils perchance to add a year or two to the sum total of a laborious, anxious or useless existence." 12 VACATION. VACATION. The drive over Westminster-bridge suggested, not one of those sapient oaths which our Cockney ancestors used to take at Highgate-arch (when they ventured so far) but a resolution to do that which thousands had previously attempted, with little success viz. to dismiss care on the northern bank of the Thames, for six or eight weeks, and leave that article where I found it in MODERN BABYLON. A retrospective glance at the metropolis, its innumerable spires piercing the canopy of car- bonaceous vapour that hung over it, and various tumultuous reminis- cences of the passions, anxieties, and sorrows that harass the million and a half of human beings concentrated within its precincts, admo- nished me that it would have been more magnanimous, as well as patriotic, to carry on my own shoulders my individual burthen of care, rather than fling it back where there was already a superabundance of the evil. But the human mind is seldom at a loss for arguments in favour of its own impulses. The little mite of care, thought I, which has been left on the other side of the river, will not be felt in the great load which weighs on the metropolis, while its dismissal will be a happy deliverance for myself. I also recollected that it was in this whirlpool of perturbations, I had picked up this load of care and to the same emporium I was determined to return it at least for a time. Never did imperial tyrant impose his taxes more rigorously on abject slave, than does Modern Babylon levy her mental and bodily assessments on her pallid and care-worn inhabitants ! There is a strong disposition in mankind to evade taxation especially when laid upon health or happi- ness. No wonder, then, that so many labourers in the departments of literature, science, law, divinity, physic and even the mechanical arts, should make an annual effort to escape, for a short period, from the harpies, the vampyres, the incubi of avocation, mental and corporeal, which torment, exhaust, and oppress their bodily health and intellec- tual energies in the capital ! If, in congregated masses of society, there be sources of excitement and pleasure which cannot be found in rural retirement, it is equally certain that these excitements have their limits and their consequences, which soon incapacitate their votaries for the enjoyment of them. These votaries of town pleasures and modish frivolities, however, have, generally, the means of changing the scene, when the senses are sated ; and they can fly to the lakes or the moun- tains, the coast or the country, when the tide of fashion ebbs from the banks of the Thames, or the dust and smoke of the metropolis become troublesome to their eyes and lungs. Yet, when all the birds of passage MIGRATION. 13 have taken wing for more favoured skies when the swallows and the woodcocks, the cuckoos and nightingales of London, have diverged to every point of the compass, the diminution of the metropolitan popu- lation is scarcely sensible. But after the aristocracy, the hierarchy, and the squierarchy have withdrawn to their villas and country mansions and while the adventurous tourist explores the Helvetian, ^Cambrian, and Caledonian mountains while the poet seeks the lakes, the painter the woodlands, and the sportsman the moors then, we see inferior, but larger masses of society, wing their flight to less distant stations, and perform their orbits in less eccentric circles. The chalky cliffs, the azure "ocean, the refreshing breezes of Margate, Ramsgate, and the coast of Sussex, return a very profitable per centage, in the shape of health, to the calculating merchant, or shopkeeper, who takes a ticket for the season at the Steam Navigation Office ; while a cheaper, but somewhat inferior article of this precious commodity is furnished by Hampstead and Highgate by Mussellhill and Blackheath by Richmond and Harrow by Norwood and Beulah. Even the prodigious mass of human beings, whom necessity compels, or inclination induces to breathe the dense atmosphere of the metropolis, throughout the year, have a weekly opportunity of gulping a few mouthfuls of diluted hydrogen gas, in the parks and squares of London ! It is fortunate for this last and largest class of the metropolitan popu- lation, that, the extensive emigration of their more fortunate fellow citizens, in summer and autumn, purifies, in some degree, the atmosphere of modern Babylon, by diminishing the consumption of oxygen, the ex- trication of gas, the generation of smoke, the macadamization of granite and last, not least, the irritation of politics ! In fact, the air is more pure, the houses more healthy, the streets more pleasant, when we fly from, than when we rush to, the British metropolis. The aspirations for country air by the inhabitants of crowded cities, is no modern mania no fashionable or temporary impulse, generated by the whim of the day. No. It is grounded on a firmer basis, and has prevailed in every age and country in Babylon of the East, Babylon of the West, and Babylon of the North. " O Rus, quando te aspiciam ! " gives some idea of the horrors or the hell of Rome, during the SEASON, before the patricians and the poets of that city rushed annually to their mountain villas and maritime retreats. As for the country, which Horace so ardently apostrophises, the Romans had none to retire to in Italy and thei'efore we need not wonder that the summits of the hills were crowned with stately mansions, and that the senators and citizens actually 14 THE TOURIST. pushed their marine villas into the ocean, to avoid the deadly heat, and still more deadly malaria of the valleys and plains *. Not so with London. In whatever direction its citizens radiate from the central magnet, health and refreshment meet them on every gale, and salute them at every step. THE TOURIST. The valetudinary traveller in pursuit of health, and the commercial traveller in search of ORDERS, may, no doubt, find, in the south of Eng- land, the objects of their wishes and their wants; but the professional tourist, from Paternoster-row or Albemarle-street, seeking materials for his TOMES, had better follow the example of the dromedary in the desert, and carry his provender in his own pouch. The greater part of England is utterly destitute of the primary and essential elements of a picturesque tour. No romantic RUINS crowning every cliff and eminence no snow- capt Alps or Apennines, to surprise and refresh the eye no stupendous glaciers or frozen rivers descending slowly through the gorges of the mountains no foaming cataracts rushing over rugged precipices no " lake of the dismal swamp," like the Pontines of Italy, or the savannahs of America, to arrest his progress, or harrow up his feelings no deadly marshes to give him a malaria fever no swarms of mendicants to excite his pity or disgust, in every town and village no DOUANE, to air his baggage on the road no police or passport-office to number his years, calculate the angle of his nose, paint his complexion, or register his avocation no rugged chaussee to jog his memory or stir up his bile no gendarmes to poke a bayonet in his face when entering a gateway no civil or military tyranny to excite his ire no priestcraft or miracles to call forth his scepticism or contempt no monuments of antiquity to kindle his historical recollections no amphitheatres to demonstrate the proficiency of our ancestors in the art and science of manslaughter no processions of the HOST to put infidels on their knees when they refuse to pray no sirocco or tramontane, by way of change of air on the road no fragrant odours floating on the gale no graceful vines festooned from tree to tree no burning suns or brilliant skies no arid rocks or barren wastes to exercise his pen or pencil no despot's spy to entrap him into a dungeon not even a brigand to entertain him in the moun- tains, and acquaint his friends with the safety of his retreat no croco- diles on the banks of rivers to divert him by swallowing tigers and drowning buffaloes no pyramids on the plains to show how a redundant * From Terracina to Naples, the sea was encroached upon, to escape the heat of the earth ! THE TOURIST. 15 population was usefully employed in constructing mansions for the kings of Egypt, and the subjects of travelling resurrection men no volcanoa to illuminate our long dark nights, and bury a city, now and then, for the benefit of antiquaries in the 36th century ! These are awful truths, to which Britons must subscribe these are irremediable evils to which the tourist in search of the terrible, the pic- turesque, and the sublime, must submit ! There are many people, how- ever, in this country, of such narrow views and chilly imaginations, that they not only attempt to extenuate the palpable deficiency, or rather the titter poverty of England, in all the foregoing interesting and exciting features, but, by a strange and bigoted sort of prejudice, maintain that this poverty or deficiency is an advantage ! Picturesque ruins, say they, are too often emblems of national decline the few which present them- selves in England being memorials of vassalage abolished and natural rights restored Alps and Apennines produce no hay or corn glaciers are only good for the ibex and the hunter waterfalls cannot be navigated by steam-boats or coal-barges mendicants are better in the poor-houses than in the streets custom-houses are pest-houses, and proper only in gea-ports passports are fitter for slaves than free-men, who have a right to go where they like on lawful occasions gendarmes are an inferior species of " unboiled lobsters," whose claws are tipped with steel instead of wood priestcraft, miracles, and hosts are unnecessary where there is rational religion Highland huts and whiskey are preferable to brigand caves and rosoglio hops are handsomer than vines, and far more whole- some a clouded sky is not seldom better than a dazzling sun salmon and trout, in our rivers, are more edible and marketable fish than sharks and crocodiles a redundant population may be more usefully employed in constructing rail-roads for the living, than catacombs for the dead volcanos are fine objects for the painter, but dangerous neighbours for the peasant, lime being a much better manure for the ground than lava or pumice-stone ; and one manufacturing city being more useful to the community than half a dozen of buried ones finally, say these John Bulls, the " blue police," or street-walkers of London, are preferable to the invisible spies of the Savarys, the Doges, the Popes, and the despots of other countries *. If the traveller in search of the sublime, the romantic, or the pic- * That intelligent, amusing, and veracious traveller, Prince Puckler Muskau, asserts that there are four things in which French travelling is superior to English viz.: climate, eating and drinking, cheapness, and sociability. I enter my decided protest against the better and cheaper provender. At the table d'h&te you pay from '2s. 6d. to 3*. 4d. for a farrago of " dishes tortured from their native taste," swimming in oil, and redolent of garlic with a bottle of sour wine, which costs the maitre d'hotel four pence, 16 THE STEAMfeR. turesque, should he disappointed in the south of England, it does not follow that the philosopher and the philanthropist should find themselves in the same predicament. If it be true that, in perfect health, the mind is unconscious of any of the numerous and complicated operations going on in the body ; so it is probable that, the fewer the objects of vivid ex- citement in a country, the better it is for the inhabitants. But Great Britain is by no means deficient in objects of reflection for the contem- plative tourist; and is, in reality, as interesting to foreigners, as other countries are to Englishmen. We often fly abroad, however, in quest of novelty, when we do not know, or do not appreciate the variety of scenes and circumstances, on our own soil, and close within our grasp, which are capable of affording health and pleasure, at small expense of time or money, to almost every class of travellers. While the foregoing reflections were passing rapidly through the mind, the horses were left nearly to their own discretion, which, by the bye, is often greater than that of their riders or drivers. Turnpike gates are unfailing remembrancers of one of the peculiarities of England viz. : good roads, heavy tolls, and insolent collectors. That at Deptford, re- minded us that we were now to travel in a different kind of vehicle, where our ideas as well as our bodies were to move at a quicker pace. THE STEAMER THE " GATHERING." If an imaginative Greek or Roman were to rise from his grave, and behold an English steamer in full operation, he would be equally puzzled and surprised. He would be apt to conclude that after ages (as re- spected his first incarnation) had given birth to some huge and mon- strous hybrid animal the offspring of earth and ocean a monster that, at one and the same moment, flies through the air, by means of water ; and skims along the surface of the sea, by means of fire a master tyrant who imprisons conflicting elements in his Vulcanian paunch elements, whose gigantic struggles for victory or freedom, are employed to work the iron wings that impel this mighty monster through air and ocean ! and the traveller a fit of colic, if not of cholera. Now, I aver, that a better or wholesomer dinner than roast beef and brown stout never smoked on a French table. Ask for such a thing for " bceuf au naturel " in France; and what do they give you ? the fat of a pig engrafted on the flesh of a cow ! Besides, the German prince did not calculate very nicely. He admits that an English stage-coach goes two miles for the diligence's one therefore, unless we fast every second day, our provender costs us just double, in the same number of miles, what it does in England I This is putting TIME out of the question, which might not be worth much, in Puckler Muskau's case, but is somewhat valuable to Englishmen. THE STEAMER. 17 Deep in the womb of this moving volcano, we see the fires of Etna glowing cauldrons boiling pumps playing chains clanking Ixion's wheels revolving steam roaring and volumes of smoke belching up- wards to darken the skies with artificial clouds ! Meanwhile, " THE GATHERING" takes place, with more speed and certainty, than if Roderick Dhu's henchman was flying from glen to glen, displaying the dreadful signal of " battle, murder, and sudden death." From every quarter of Modern Babylon (the grand rendez- vous or " muster-place of Lanric Mead") troops are pouring in, with smoother names, perhaps, but with more varied characters, costumes, and physiognomy than the " fiery cross" ever collected, when " Fast as the fatal symbol flies, In arms the huts and hamlets rise ; From winding glen, from upland brown, They poured each hardy tenant down." The "gathering" was for the mountains, valleys, and lochs of Scot- land ; but with far different objects in view than those which urged the sons of Clan Alpine to obey their chieftain's call. If the UNITED KINGDOM (I mean the STEAMER) had been blown away to some terra incognita in the Arctic or Antarctic regions, or to some unknown Juan Fernandez in the Pacific Ocean, and there stranded, she would have carried with her the elementary constituents of a new com- munity, on a much larger scale than did the Ark of Noah, when she grounded on Mount Ararat or the bark of Deucalion and Pyrrha, when she cast anchor on Parnassus. It is probable, indeed, that the ark contained a larger proportion of the wild animals, (as lions, tigers, mammoths, and rattlesnakes,) than did " the UNITED KINGDOM." But as far as man and domestic animals were concerned, we had a wonder- ful superiority over Noah and Deucalion. We had JUDGES, who, having recommended a trip to Tyburn or Australia, to several of their countrymen (by way of change of scene) had wisely summed up in favour of a trip to Ayrshire for themselves SENATORS, who had impaired their own constitutions, while patching that of the state, and were on their way to the mountains for recruit of health JUVENILE VETERANS from the Horse-Guards, with Polybius in hand, to reconnoitre the pass of Killicrankie and the field of Culloden BARRISTERS, who had exhausted their briefs, and the purses of their clients, in the dense atmosphere of the courts, and were now intent on a brief vacation in the country DOCTORS, who, having killed or dis- abled a sufficient number of fashionables, in the season, were winding up the annual account, by killing time itself, till the town again filled TAILORS from Bond-street, who, being tired of measuring the " Co- c 18 THE GATHERING. riuthian pillars of the state," were making a fashionable tour to the Hebrides, to measure the basaltic columns of StafFa BOARDING-SCHOOL, MISSES, from Hackney and Hammersmith, with their papas and mammas, determined to see the procession of Roderick Dhu's barge on Loch Katrine, and the battles of the wild " Hielandmen" among the Trosachs AIDES-DE-CAMP from the Autocrat, bound to the valley of Glencoe and the Cave of M'Leod, to collect hints for the next imperial ukase, en- titled " Punishments in Poland" French SAVANS, on a voyage to the Arctic regions of Sky, in search of materials for a folio volume of ad- ventures, to make the Parisians stare* ANGLERS and FOWLERS, enough to depiscate (may I use the term ?) half the streams and depopulate half the moors of Scotland ANTIQUARIANS bound for Beregonium, to examine the remains of a city that never existed MINERALOGISTS on a journey to Craig Phaedric, to chip off pieces of lava or pumice-stone from the summit or side of a volcanic mountain, as specimens of vitrified forts ALDERMEN from Bucklersbury, to exude a portion of green fat and callipash, on the sides of Ben-Lomond HEBREWS, from Change- alley and Monmouth-street, to ventilate and purify, as a peace-offering to cholera and a preparation for their new franchises BANKERS, from Lombard-street, going to compare notes with their Scotch correspondents IRVINITES, on a voyage to the Orkneys, to procure a supply of Norse tongues for Babel Chapel, in Regent-street candidates for the Travel- ler's Club, going to cross the Tay at Dunkeld, over the PONS ASINORUM, that was to qualify for admission Tourists of all characters and calibres; some to make a tour simply ; some to write a tour badly ; but the greater number to talk of a tour incessantly afterwards POLITICAL ECONOMISTS, on their way to Garveloch, to witness Miss Martineau's millennium in the straths and glens, where, by a kind of modern alchemy, peasants have been transmuted into black cattle, women into sheep, and children into lambs ; where farms have been enlarged by the rule of SUBTRACTION, and rents doubled by that of REDUCTION : to the great benefit of mankind, and the encouragement of emigration PLANTERS, from Jamaica, on a classical tour to the Isle of RUM NABOBS from the East ; civil, military, and mercantile ; some with the com- plexion of a star pagoda ; some as pallid as a sicca rupee ; and others * Mons. Panckouke, who is now publishing, in magnificent folio numbers, his "Voyage Pittoresque aux Isles Hebrides," tells us that, ''dans ces parages, 1'atmosphere est tnujours chargee des nonages Epaies" and in the second livraison, he assures us that the sun never showed his cheerful face for more than six weeks, in the middle of summer, and then only for a few minutes, just to gild the mountains of Mull! "Le soleil, que nous n'avions pas vue depuis plus de six semaines, dora la mer et les sommite'g des Isles." p. 16. This is admirable ! THE GATHERING. 19 as blue as Asiatic cholera ; hut all moved hy the same nostalgic im- pulse, to revisit their native glens and mountains SUGAR-BAKERS, from Goodman's-fields, to cool their coppers on the ocean, after being overheated by ginger and the juice of the cane from the Antilles CANTABS, with their tutors, going to study spherics in the Isle of Egg, and conic sections among the Paps of Jura OXONIANS, to collate Greek and Gaelic in the monumental inscriptions of lona, and demonstrate the existence of a Deity by the form of the arches in Fingal's Cave* AMBASSADORS from the king of Tahiti, on their way to the north, to dissuade the Scotch from worshipping idolatrous images of gold and silver HOLLANDERS from the Zuyder-Zee, travelling to Inverness, to ascertain the fact, or rather to expose the fiction, of large Baltic ships sailing through the Highland mountains, at the rate of ten miles an hour, against the wind, thus eclipsing the exploits of their own " flying Dutchman" at the Cape HEROES of the SOCK and BUSKIN, migrating to the Land of Cakes, with the laudable intention of making Sawney's sides shake with laughter at mimic scenes of merriment on the stage ; an enterprize at all times difficult, but, in cholera times, impossible Agents from a new joint-stock company, going to plant vines and olives in the Isle of Sky MISSIONARIES from Ave-Maria-lane ; not to convert the Clan Alpines to Christianity ; but to convert old rags and thread- bare tartans into foolscap for circulating libraries YOUTHFUL POETS, hoping to " build the lofty verse," among the mountains of Morven, and season it with sublimity on the banks of the roaring Cona TALE- BEARERS from the Chesapeake, collecting Highland traditions for the Transatlantic marketf DIPLOMATISTS from Downing-street, going to collect their scattered thoughts in the mountains, while preparing a second edition of Belgi-Batavian protocols PHARMACOPOLISTS, whose very mortars had become hoarse with the influenza, and whose phials were drained of their wrath, on a visit to St. Andrew's, preparatory to rising a degree in their profession, before the next epidemic harvest younger branches of the NOBILITY, taking the benefit of sea air (not at all for the sake of economy) on an autumnal visit to the towers of some friendly Tully-veolan or Bradwardine, for change of scene, and of com- plexion GRID-IRONMONGERS, from Kensington, to grill Scotch collops in the Lothians AGITATORS, seeking tranquillity of mind in locomotion of the body CONSERVATIVES, flying from the " West end," to pre- serve the remnants of a shattered constitution new-made MEMBERS of the IMPERIAL, going to try the patience of a Scotch congregation, by * See Palmers Prize Poem on Staffa, Oxford, 1832. | See, farther on, the original of Rip van Winkle, in the two fiddlers of Tom Na- heurich. c 2 20 STEAM TRAVELLING. long-winded speeches about nothing at all MANDARINS, from Leaden- hall-street, with faces much longer than the leases of their tea-shops. These, and some scores of other personages, whose characters and pursuits were not immediately legible in their looks or language, were quickly assembled on the deck of the steamer a locality by no means adverse to the interchange of information, or the elicitation of thought and reflexion. The size and celerity of a vessel of this description, induce thousands of the better classes of society to travel annually by steam, who would not embark in sailing packets ; and the consequence is, that a large mass of intelligence as well as of amusement is concen- trated within a narrow compass, surrounded by wooden walls without gates, and a formidable moat without a drawbridge, and that too under the most favourable circumstances for social converse and intellectual reciprocities. In the steamer, each individual considers himself, for the time, as in a mask and domino, unfettered by introductions or recog- nitions and what is better, on a perfect equality with his neighbour. The banker and the baker, the marchioness and the milliner, the senator and the tailor, pay the same fare, and are entitled to the same accom- modations. There is no weather side of the quarter-deck for grandees, and lee side for inferiors. All cabin passengers sit down at the same table-d'hote, walk the same plank, and repose in similar dormitories. Having some experience in travelling, I have no hesitation in affirming that, of all modes of conveyance, the steamer combines the greatest number of advantages, whether we view it with reference to economy, comfort, society, or health. The box-seat of a stage-coach, however, may prefer strong claims of rivalry with the steamer. We there enjoy the scenery of the country, embrown our complexions, and increase our appetite ; not always the case at sea. If the coach breaks down, we have nothing to do with the expenses of repair if we dislocate a shoulder, the proprietors are bound to put it in again and if a neck be broken, the doctor's bill will be very short. On the other hand, if the boiler of the steamer burst, and our vapour-bath prove too hot, we have a cold one always ready for a plunge, with cork and air jackets to float us to a friendly shore. If we strike on a rock in a foggy night, Captain Manby is prepared to heave us a rope, and lift us over the breakers. Should animation be suspended, in this enterprize, we have the Humane Society, with JACK FROST, their secretary, supplied with ample materials for restoring vital heat. Much, therefore, may be said on both sides, as Uncle Toby said long ago. The very best English stage, indeed, is not without disadvantages, which are avoided in the steamer. In this last, we are not annoyed by passengers, who either have colds, and cannot bear the windows open in the hottest weather ; or asthma, and there- PLEASURES OP TRAVELLING. 21 fore must have fresh air from both sides, whatever may be the tempe- rature ! Although there may be room enough in this world, for great and small ; for rich and poor ; such is not always the case in a stage- coach. If two great men, or great women, come in contact even on the same political bench, the collisions, during the journey, are often per- sonally offensive. Who has travelled outside, in a rainy day, without feeling the favours of his neighbours, who generously bestow the drip- pings of their umbrellas, without any view to a return in kind ? The social or colloquial commerce of intellect possesses a feature which distinguishes it from all other kinds of commerce ; inasmuch as its merchants do not barter their commodities for money, or for goods in kind, or indeed of any kind ; but distribute them gratuitously and bountifully to all who are willing to receive them, and even to many who are insensible to the gift, and ungrateful to the donor. On this account, a long-eared animal, with half the patience of that much^injured and much-enduring tribe,'may pick up and accumulate an immense store of second-hand wares, with very little expense, and which may be vended again, in this age of intellect, as spank new commodities. We have all seen how Jedediah Cleishbotham, in his arm-chair at the Wallace inn of Gandercleuch, gathered from the travellers, who took up their night's abode in that humble caravansera, a store of anecdote, history, and intelligence, which returned him a revenue greater than that of many a German prince; yet what were his opportunities, compared with those enjoyed by a modern caterer for the public, who travels by steam, indites by steam, prints by steam, and diffuses his writings by steam, all over the world ! Why should we not have " Tales of a Steamer" as well as of a whiskey-shop ? There are more intelligent personages in the cabin of the one, than in the chimney corner of the other. But these hints are thrown out for the benefit of others, not of myself. And this leads me to the PLEASURES of TRAVELLING. Our bards have treated us to the " Pleasures of Hope," the " Pleasures of Ima- gination," and the " Pleasures of Memory ;" but none of them have favoured us with a poem on the pleasures of travel, which are superior to all the others put together*. The pleasures of hope too often end in disappointment those of the imagination, are only imaginary, at the best while the pleasures of memory are not seldom embittered by recollec- tions of evils long sustained, and sorrows unassuaged ! The pleasures of travel are nearly without alloy. If they are more moderate, they are * Sir Humphry Davy's " Consolations of Travel" can hardly be considered aii exception. They are ruminations in the clouds, or dreams in the Coliseum, the offspring of corporeal disorder and exuberant fancy. See his very accurate description of the inhabitants of Saturn and Jupiter, while asleep in the Flavian Amphitheatre at Home. 22 THE KIVER. more lasting than many other pleasures, being based in improvement of the mind, and health of the body. The reminiscences, too, of our peregrinations, are productive of still more pleasure than the act of travelling, for reasons which philosophers and poets, of all ages, have amply explained. " Forsan el hsec, olim meminisse juvabit." THE RIVER. As the clanking engines began to play, and the revolving wheels dashed the white foam from the vessel's sides, we ranged along a noble structure on our right, fit residence for an imperial court, but now standing as a testimony of national gratitude to the sons of the wave. It is within these walls that we may yet see the companions of Nelson, St. Vincent, and Duncan men whose blood crimsoned the waters of Aboukir, Trafalgar, and Camperdown whose members were severed from their bodies, and sepulchred beneath the tides of the Nile, the Atlantic, and the German ocean. He who can pass unconcerned these fading memorials of his country's struggles and his country's fame, is defective in sensibility, if not in patriotism, and lacks one of those channels by which external objects make impressions on the mind, excite reflexion, and humanize the heart. A stranger approaching CANTON would be apt to conclude that half the population of that immense city domiciliated from birth till death on the surface of the Tigris* : a Chinese sailing up the Thames to London-bridge, would not unnaturally imagine that half the tars of Old England had returned from various parts of the globe to celebrate some jubilee, and had piled their ships together, as soldiers pile their arms, till the festival was over. Not more numerous were the glitter- ing bayonets that bristled on the plains of Friedland, before the hostile armies closed, than are the tall masts of commerce, in densely-planted groves, on the waters of the Thames. If two or three sinuosities on one bank of the Bosphorus, displaying a Lilliputian fleet of galleys, xebecs, and row-boats, whose united cargoes might have been stowed away in the holds of a couple of East Indiamen, were dignified with the title of " THE PORT," par excellence, what designation does the THAMES deserve, on whose tides are wafted to and fro, the flags of all nations, and whose barks crowd every port, from the Hellespont to the Hudson, from Australia to Iceland t ? Those who have circumnavigated * The Canton river bears this name. f Sir Walter Scott puts into the mouth of Sir Walter Raleigh, the following expres- THE RIVER. 23 the almost interminable line of coast which bounds the Isles of Great Britain surveyed her harbours and adjacent seas sailed from clime to clime, and met her white cross on: every point of the ocean, in every anchorage, and on every shore would be almost justified in conclud- ing that our maritime population falls little short of our territorial. The shores of the Thames would not impress a stranger with the idea that he was approaching the greatest metropolis in the world. The banks of the Tagus, or even of the Clyde, are far more imposing, in this respect, than those of the Thames. The greater part of the northern shore, indeed, has few capabilities of embellishment, being best fitted for grazing sheep and breeding agues ; while the southern border, though highly culti- vated, swelled into undulations, and finely wooded, is not studded with villas, and lined with well-built towns and villages, like the banks of the Clyde nor glittering with castles, convents, towers, churches, and forts, whiter than Parian marble, and contrasting with the verdure of the vine, as on the shores of the Tagus. But old Father Thames appears to be little solicitous about extrinsic ornament. He seems conscious that, on every flood tide, he heaves forward the riches of the world, and the rude materials of every clime ; while with each ebb he rolls back these rude materials transmuted by the talisman of British machinery, into' the most costly and useful wares, at once the envy and the admiration of the world. But the channel widens, the atmosphere clears, the navigation be- comes less intricate, the crowd of passengers on Neptune's choicest turnpike road diminishes, and we enter on a new scene. THE SEA. That admirable poet, Mr. Campbell, has written a most elegant and amatory epistle to this element or deity, descriptive of her various charms (for I see no reason why the sea should not be of the same gender as her sister the earth,) from a romantic headland near St. Leonard's. Her divinityship is a very old acquaintance of mine ; and many a year have we travelled together round various portions of this globe. When in good humour, no lady has a smoother face or a more smiling countenance ; she then deserves the title of " Mirror of the Stars," which the poet has given her; but when ruffled in temper, she sion : " There are two things scarce matched in the universe the sun in heaven, and the Thames on earth." What would Sir Walter Raleigh now say, could he rise from the grave and replace his head on its own shoulders ? He would acknowledge that the Tower presented fewer prisoners, and the Thames more masts than in his day ! 24 THE SEA. is the veriest termagant I have ever encountered ! She will then fret, and foam, and roar; aye, and proceed from words to blows, knocking about her oldest friends, like stock-fish, and not unfrequently dashing them to pieces against rocks ; or, Cyclop-like, swallowing them up alive in her capacious paunch ! I am strongly disposed to think that, had Mr. Campbell been introduced to his favourite goddess, in one of these angry moods, he would very soon have been sick of her company. This, at least, was my case and the case of most people, on first en- countering the frowns of her marine majesty. Mr. Campbell, however, was a lover and as such, he only saw, from his bower near Hastings, the smiling Syren. " mighty Sea ! Camelion-like thou changest, but there's love In all thy change, and constant sympathy With yonder sky." There is, indeed, sympathy enough between air and ocean but it is a sympathy which manifests itself, too often in stormy conflicts and growling contentions for mastery, while harassing the peaceful voyager, or plundering him of the property which he is carrying towards his native shores. It is very well for the poet to talk of the " crisped smiles, Luxuriant hearings, and sweet whisperings," of this fair mistress, while eyeing her charms from " some romantic eminence*." But I, who have experienced her frowns and caresses in every latitude, from that fragrant Archipelago " Where seas of glass, with gay reflexion, smile Round the green coast of Banda's spicy isle" to those dreary northern shores where the lips of the goddess are fortu- nately sealed in icy silence for six months of the year, have lost much of my juvenile passion for the sea ! It is a pity, indeed, that the eloquent bard did not see the object of his adoration in one of her hysterical paroxysms off the Cape, when the giant genius of that stupendous promontory wraps a huge table-cloth round his ears to deaden the clatter of his neighbour's tongue ! He * If we may rely on the authority of Hudibras, the goddess makes not only a very pleasant mistress, but a much less noisy wife than some of her sex. " The dukes of Venice, who are said The Adriatic Sea to wed, Have gentler mates, perhaps, than those For whom the State decrees such shows." THE SEA. 25 would have found that this same " Mirror of the Stars," is not always employed in the kind office of " Rocking even the fisher's little bark As gently as a mother rocks her child." Verily I have seen this gentle nurse dandle on her lap half a dozen line- of-battle ships nay, a whole fleet of Indiamen, with as much ease, and apparently with as much malicious pleasure, as a cat dandles a mouse, or a boy bandies a shittlecock ! Many have been the philtres and objurgations, proposed for securing her " crisped smiles," and repressing her " luxuriant hearings ;" but few of them have been successful. Dr. Granville, in his " St. Peters- burgh," assures us that forty drops of laudanum will prove a certain panacea for all the ills which her marine majesty can inflict on suffer- ing landsmen. I dare not doubt the Doctor's prescription, but having great faith in the efforts of nature, and the rewards of patience, it has been my custom to let the angry goddess have her way, and wait for the calm that always succeeds the storm. The wisdom of Socrates is not to be despised. He resented not the watery salutation which was clashed about his ears from a scolding wife ; and still less should the wooer of the sea nymph rebel against the seasoning which she imposes on her most favoured suitors. Just as the foregoing observations were going to press, I received by the twopenny-post, the following anonymous effusion, entitled, A SEA VIEW, (NOT CAMPBELL'S) FROM ST. LEONARD'S. I hate your hoary face gruff sea ! 'Twere vile hypocrisy in me, To say I loved you. If I do, May 1 be d rowned and Campbell too ! Great BRINY BEING ! at whose roar, My stomach heaves, and every pore Exhales a moisture damp and cold I know your horrors well of old ! To me more welcome is the growl Of Thames-street fish-fags, or the howl Of hungry wolves, than your dull moan, And yonder shingles' surly groan. That man, by Jove ! who gives the sea The preference to land must be A fool or a philosopher, Whom no privations can deter. The glories of the ocean grand, Tis very well to sing on land ; 26 THE SEA. 'Tis very fine to hear them caroll'd, By THOMAS CAMPBELL, or CHILDE HAROLD ; But very sad to see that ocean From east to west, in wild commotion To hear the burly billow's roar Around, behind us, and before To view the red and lurid sky In all its " constant sympathy," With sea as mad as moon can make The mistress of that reckless rake I 'Tis sad to trust the wintry wave, Too oft, alas t the seaman's grave ! To brave the fury of the storm, Some notion of its rage to form To feel the " dread sublime," in all The terrors of a sudden squall To grasp the gunwale, every time, The ruffian billows upward climb, And cling to rope at every lurch, That might uproot a solid church ! To see huge trunks and packing-cases Fly off, at tangents, from their places The chairs and tables emulate The evolutions of a plate, The larger dishes fiercely fall, In mortal conflict with the small The locomotive saucers chase Inconstant cups, from place to place ; Grave mustard-pots to tea-pots setting, And pepper-castors pirouetting j To hear the same eternal thump, From morn to night, of either pump : To bear the same infernal strife For days, for weeks perhaps for life ! The rattling blocks, the tempest's howl, The gruff command, the surly growl : With men of uncongenial mind, To be " cribbed, cabined, and confined" To tug at beef, in rounds and briskets, Salt pork and adamantine biscuits: And, finally, from first to last, To be convinced all sufferings past " Are trifles light as air," to those A sea-sick LANDSMAN undergoes: And own a ship is but a jail, Of wooden walls, of structure frail, Where one, not doomed to die aground, Is very likely to be drowned. M. THE SEA. 27 Whether it was from reminiscences of " Auld lang syne," or some presentiment, on the part of the poet's mistress, that I might one day attempt to sketch her portrait, I know not ; but certain it is, that she was in a singularly mild mood during the whole of this passage. A Nautilus might have spread its sail and gone to sleep in safety not a zephyr disturbed the long train of smoke that rose from our furnace, and wreathed, for miles, in our wake while the setting sun poured a column of fluid gold along the bosom of the ocean, sufficient to secure the heart of coyest maiden, and perhaps as really metallic as that which was poured by Jupiter into a celebrated castle in days of yore, for no very honourable purpose. The assemblage of fantastic clouds along the western horizon, assumed all the forms which a poet's brain could convert into every imaginable similitude of things terrestrial and celes- tial, such as are seen, on a magnificent scale, in the equatorial and arctic regions, on a summer's evening. After a short twilight, the full moon, between whom and the watery element on which we floated, there is a strong sympathy, as well as a beneficial commerce, in the article of sun-beams, rose, with ruddy countenance, from the very bosom of the deep ; and, with a generosity founded on the most approved canons of our own planet, distributed to her neighbour EARTH, all the light which she had borrowed from the sun and was unable to keep in her own possession. The column of gold, in our wake, was now succeeded by a column of silver, stretched out to the utmost verge of the eastern horizon ; and as it lay directly in the course which we were steering, it required no very extravagant flight of fancy to compare it with the pillar of light which led the Israelites along the desert sands*. My eye had been long familiarized to scenes of this description, in various climes ; but always in connexion with phenomena very dif- ferent from those which now presented themselves namely, silence and motionless tranquillity, our bark, in other times, sleeping, as it * Poets have taken great liberties with nature in all ages much more so than painters. Thus, they have represented the sun-beams as gilding a whole lake or sheet of water, and converting it into a golden mirror. Every one knows the description of Loch Katrine, by the immortal Scott " One burnished sheet of living gold Loch Katrine lay beneath him roll'd." And yet there is no such thing in nature ! If a sheet of water lies between the spectator and the sun, or moon, a column of golden or silver light is seen crossing the watery expanse; but nothing more. It is physically impossible to be otherwise ; yet the ima- gination yields at once to the deception, and poets are, no doubt, pardonable in availing themselves of this facility in captivating the senses at the expense of the judgment. 28 FIRTH OF FORTH. were, on the bosom of the unruffled deep. Here the scene was quite reversed. The vessel was cleaving the level plain of water with astonishing velocity, as if impelled by a furious tempest that would have raised the billows into mountains and by what? " There is only one step," said Napoleon, " from the sublime to the ridiculous" this huge Leviathan, with all her cargo of live and dead lumber, was impelled along the deep at the rate of twelve miles an hour by the steam of a kettle ! But I shall not protract a voyage which I have never yet known any one inclined to do, however favourable the breeze, smooth the water, agreeable the company, or commodious the ship a strong proof that man was designed to live on land rather than on water ; otherwise he would, doubtless, have been born with fins instead of fingers, and a tail instead of toes. FIRTH OF FORTH. The Firth of Forth forms a noble estuary and approach to the Scottish capital and would be an invaluable feature in the southern part of the island ; where the whole navy of England might ride in safety, and Neptune hold his court on the most magnificent scale. The steamer darts forward between the ruins of art and the wrecks of nature TANTALIX>N CASTLE on our left, and the stupendous BASS ROCK, rising five hundred feet perpendicular from the ocean, on our right. If the Caledonian Capitol be ever surprised by an enemy from the sea, it will not be for want of geese to give timely notice to the garrison ! From the Bass, as from Ailsa, on the other side of the island, the intrusion of man, and the sight of a steamer, dislodge such myriads of the winged tribe that the air is darkened by them, and the simile of a modern author is not very extravagant, when he tell us that they fall again like a shower of snow in every direction, as far as the eye can reach. The series of towering eminences, on which the \ith a great variety of trees, underwood, shrubs, heaths, and flowers. The oak, the ivy, the Alpine pine, the mountain ash, the weeping birch, and the dark -brown heather, have here associated for twenty or thirty centuries perhaps much longer diffusing their shade and their fragrance over sterile rocks and frightful precipices, in silence and in solitude save the murmuring of unseen rills, winding their way to the river or the lake below. The view from the summit of Ben- Venue is the best and it is really " fearful and dizzy" to cast one's eyes down to the lake and to the Trosachs : " Where twined tlie path, in shadow hid, Round many a rocky pyramid, Shooting abruptly from the dell Ils thunder-splintei-'d pinnacle ; Round many an insulated mass, The native bulwarks of the pass, Huge as the tower which builders vain Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain. The rocky summits, split and rent, Form'd turret, dome, or battlement, Or seem'd fantastically set With cupola or minaret, Wild crests as pagod ever deck'd, Or mosque of eastern architect." The tourist, while winding his way through the Trosachs, will look in vain for the cupola, pagoda, or minaret ; though, from Ben- An or Ben-Venue, the picture of the poet will be recognised, however highly embellished. The pass itself, as viewed from the road, bears a nearer resemblance to that called the Pass of Moreau, in the Valle'e d'Enfer, of the Black Forest, than any place I now remember : but the descrip- tion of the poet would apply better to some other localities which I have seen, than to the Trosachs. I will mention one Sandy -bay, with the Adam and Eve Rocks, as viewed from Diana's Peak, or Sandy-bay Ridge, in St. Helena. The Trosachs are far from being so stupendous or imposing as the denies on the Italian side of the Simplon, about the solitude of Gonda, or even the Pass of the Bracco in Italy ; but they constitute a scene which has deservedly occupied the pen of the northern magician, and will continue to attract multitudes of Southrons from generation to generation. After what has been said of the inn at Callander, by Dr. MacCulloch, it will seem strange that there should be a very comfortable one, except when overcrowded, among the Trosachs. Mrs. Stewart furnished me with the best and most elegant bed I had slept in between London and Inverness. 50 TROSACHS LOCH KATRINE. LOCH KATRINE. THE newly-risen sun was gilding the turrets and the domes, the cupolas and the minarets of the Trosachs, as we again entered their mazes on our way to the Lake. The exhaling dews carried with them into the balmy air a profusion of odours, such as we inhale in the cinnamon groves of Ceylon, the spicy valleys of Banda, or the fragrant glades of Tuscany. " Here eglantine embalm'd the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingled there ; The primrose pale,, and violet flower Found in each clift a narrow bower; Aloft the ash and warrior oak Cast anchor in the rifted rock ; And higher yet the pine-tree hung His shatter'd trunk.' 1 " Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, Where glittering streamers waved and danced, The wanderer's eye could barely view The summer heaven's delicious blue ; So wondrous wild, the whole might seem The scenery of a fairy dream." Though this portrait is highly flattered, there is some verisimilitude between it and the original. We found the western side of the Trosachs indented by several little coves, where the water was as smooth as glass, reflecting, like a mirror, the surrounding scenery. A narrow road winds along the margin of these sinuosities to the right; but a pro- jecting rock prevents all attempts of the pedestrian to the left hand. Mrs. Stewart, the hostess of the Trosachs, had this morning dis- lodged from the hostelrie a very large and profitable flock of lake birds, (of both genders and various genera,) who now crowded into the boat that was to conduct us over this celebrated Loch. The vessel was laden to the water's edge, and conveyed a more weighty, if not more numerous freight, than Charon's bark did ever exhibit on Acheron. The morning promised well ; but we observed that Ben-Venue did not doff his bonnet to the strangers who were passing him, and a beautiful iris was seen to span Loch Katrine. We had scarcely got abreast of Helen's Bower, however, before the Lady of the Lake, or some of her Naiads, poured on our heads such a copious libation of the watery element, that had not the close-compacted shields of umbrellas, cloaks, and parasols, thrown off great part of the deluge, the boat must have been swamped. The term RAIN is not at all applicable to this kind of LOCH KATRINE. 51 aqueous precipitation. We seemed to have got entangled in the tail of a water-spout or rather we felt as if running the gantlet under the Stauhach or the Giesbach, so heavy and so transitory was the fall of water. It appeared, indeed, as if one of the reservoir clouds, passing over our heads, had spning a leak, and emptied its contents between Ben-Venue and Ben-An. Such phenomena are familiar to those who travel among Alpine countries. Dr. MacCulloch, on the top of Ben- Ledi, in this very neighbourhood, got a dripping which he did not easily forget. " In an instant, and without warning, the shower de- scended in one broad stream, like a cascade, from the clouds and, in an instant, it ceased again. We have heard of counting the drops of rain ; but here there were no drops to be counted it was one solid sheet of water." In the Highlands of Scotland, more than in any mountainous country with which I am acquainted, a MACINTOSH WATER- PROOF CLOAK is peculiarly useful. There is often no time to unfold, much less to unbutton an umbrella ; for while the sun is shining full in our faces, and scarcely a cloud to be seen, twenty buckets of water are dashed on our heads, without the admonition of a sprinkling, or even a harbinger drop ! As this salutation is frequently accompanied by a sudden squall, which reverses the umbrella in an instant, the water- proof cloak and cap are superior to all other parapluies in the world, though even these are not complete shields against the torrents of rain that descend from Caledonian skies in autumn. The four Caterans who rowed us up the Lake seemed to despise any defence against the water)' deluge that created such apprehension among their Sassenach passengers. They doffed their bonnets in the midst of it, and appeared to enjoy the watering-pot of Miss Helen, as much as ducks in a thunder-storm. And why not? They live so much on fish and fowl, that they have become a kind of hybrid animal, not exactly clothed with feathers or scales, but with a skin as impervious to rain as either of these teguments. Nature has given the Highlander a covering of caoutchouc, which is a complete defence against winds and rains the plaid being merely a non-conductor of animal heat from the body, and totally unnecessary as a bulwark against the cold from with- out. At the risk of being called a heathen, I venture to say that, except at its eastern extremity, where the Trosachs and Ben-Venue give interest to the scene, Loch Katrine is deficient, both in beauty and sublimity. In beauty, it is far inferior to some of the English lakes say Derwent Water and very little superior in grandeur; Skiddaw being much higher and bolder than any mountain near Loch Katrine. But it is immortalized in song, and every Cockney who rushes North to see V 2 52 I.OCH KATRINE TO BKN-I.OMOXD. Helen's Bower and the Trosachs, returns, as a matter of course, full of astonishment at the grandeur of a scene, superior, no doubt, to any thing he had before contemplated ; but very inferior to the Lakes of Switzerland, Italy, or even of England. It has, however, an aspect of savage solitude, and romantic wildness, not unaccompanied by some beautiful features, which leave an indelible impression on the mental mirror of the traveller. It now appears that LOCH KATRINE is a misnomer; and that the real designation is LOCH CATERAN, from its shores being the ha\mts of free- booters or robbers. The plain English of the business, then, is, that the name should be LOCH ROBBERY or, if a more classical designation be insisted on, for the sake of lake poetry and Highland story, we may call it LOCH ROBROY. This ought to satisfy the most fastidious stickler for Highland dignity. A voyage of two hours, amid shower and sunshine, brought us to our landing-place, where ponies were ready to transport us to the banks of Loch Lomond. From some little knowledge, in the travelling way, I would recommend my metropolitan compatriots to go to the expense of five shillings for the pony, across ROB ROY'S country. Six miles of mountain may seem nothing' to a Highland tourist; but if the rains fall, and the floods descend, no uncommon occurrence, the pony will prove an acceptable companion. There is no clause in the contract to compel us to ride the pony but merely to pay for it. There were only three or four Southrons, who, not being acclimate to Highland mists, preferred four feet to two. The Lady of the Lake pursued us, in apparent revenge for passing her bower without leaving our cards, and poured on our heads, every ten or fifteen minutes, a most tremendous deluge, which roared down the sides of the hills, and flooded the paths, (for road it could not be called) in every direction. But as the alter- nations of sun and shower were regular, no possible state of atmosphere could be better adapted for the scenery around us. As we approached Loch Lomond, and were at a considerable height above its level, an ocean of mountain tops presented themselves in every direction ; and, as the clouds and fogs sailed along on the winds, they seemed to be rolling, rising, and falling, like the billows of an agitated sea. It is impossible to convey, by pen or pencil, any adequate idea of this mag- nificent scene, which I had never seen equalled among the Alps or Apennines, in any kind of weather. The best description of such a scene is depicted by Dr. MacCulloch, as observed by that gentleman on the summit of Ben-Lawers. " There was a dense mist with rain, unusually dense and dark. I was alone on this wild ridge ; and all of the few objects which I could A MOUNTAIN SCENE. 53 discern, appeared vast, and formless, shadowy, and vague, and uncer- tain. All was fearfully silent, except the whistling of the winds, which seemed to sound mysteriously among the whirling and entangling clouds. As the mists and the showers drove along before the gale, now rising up, as from an unknown abyss below, and then descending as from above ; at one moment every object vanished, and all was blank all empty, around, above, and below ; again, as they passed awav, huge and shadowy forms seemed to appear for an instant, and, in a moment again, all was gone ; adding, by the semblance of motion, to the ghostly and fearful images that seemed flitting and floating among the dark twisting vapours, and whose voices almost seemed to sound hollow in the storm." From what I saw on the high grounds near Loch Lomond, I am con- fident that Dr. MacCulloch describee! from nature as accurately as words can convey impressions. At this time, the wind shifted suddenly to the north-west the clouds broke on the western horizon the blue sky appeared there and in a quarter of an hour, the sun was shining clea,r over a magnificent landscape, with Loch Lomond at our feet, and Ben-Lomond towering to the sky on our left, crowned with a rainbow of most brilliant colours. The elements themselves seem to teach the principles of practical economy in Scotland. Among our fellow-travellers on this mountain excursion, was a young Caledonian lassie, of good family a Macgregor, or Macpherson, or Macdonald, I forget which whose handsome Leg- horn bonnet was defended from the rain, in the boat, by a compact shield of umbrellas there. On the mountain, hoAvever, the young lady soon perceived that the delicate straw which had been born and educated on the smiling banks of the Arno, would prove a poor match for the storms and mists of Morven. Like many a tall and gallant bark, the Highland nymph dowsed her topsails, and prepared to scud under bare poles ; in other words she quickly stripped off her bonny bonnet, and placed it carefully under a corner of her plaid, leaving her long, black, and flowing tresses to act as conductors of the rain, during each shower, and to wave in the winds, during the brief intervals of fair weather. While this tall, thin, but elegant figure marched in the van of the whole line of half -drowned Sassenachs, with the firm and elastic step of a chamois crossing the glaciers of Grindinwalde^her raven locks streaming 'in the storm, she bore no small resemblance to her namesake, Helen Macgregor, marshalling her awkward Cateran squad to the Pass of Aberfoyle*. And here I would offer a piece of advice to some of my countrymen * I conceive that this trait of Inversnaid economy is much more picturesque and 54 A PRESCRIPTION WITHOUT A FEE. and women, which may possibly be worth more than what they pay a guinea for to the London doctor. I would recommend those sickly maidens of the South, who " Never tell their love, But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud, Feed on their damask cheeks/' to come to the Highland mountains, for change of complexion, as well as change of air. They will here find WATER enough to " raze out the written troubles of the brain," and blanch their memories as white as the driven snow AIR enough to disperse the " green and yellow melancholy" that hangs over their countenances and EXERCISE suffi- cient to transform their spermaceti muscles into something like the elasticity of youthful living fibre. To these airy and aqueous mountains I would also invite a certain tribe of my own sex, who spend a great deal of time and money in the neighbourhood of Cavendish-square and Dover-street, swallowing large quantities of peptic precepts and blue pill, under the directions of Drs. Philip and Paris who always keep a finger on the pulse, an eye on the tongue, and a sharp look out on every transient sensation in their nerves a class of people who contrive to imagine real ills till, at length, they realize imaginary ones ! Let these victims of morbid fancy traverse the Highland mountains, for a couple of months ; and they will learn to prefer oat cake to calomel, whiskey to senna draughts, and grouse to gruel ! But I am myself " travelling out of the record," as we say in Westminster. natural than that of Inverness, as recorded by a celebrated modern traveller, and High- lander to boot Dr. MacCullocb. " It was Inverness fair. The streets were crowded with little Highland carts and little Highland ponies, and slots and gingerbread, and ribbons and fishwives ; and when the fair was over, the great ferry-boat was aground. Twenty damsels, and more, besieged the ferryman, and the ferryman vowed that the boat would not float for two hours. They might launch her if they were in a hurry for passage. No sooner said than done. To lift her out of the mud by force of hands, was impossible ; but, in an instant, a dozen or more ranged themselves on each side, and at the word of command, two lines of native fairness w^ere displayed in contrasting contact with her tarry sides, when, with one noble effort, they bore her on their backs (that is an incomplete word, too,) and launched her into the sable flood. O for the pencil of Wilkie ! I thought that my English friend would have died on the spot : so bad a philosopher was he, as not to know that it was easier to wash the tar out of the other place than out of the clothes." It must be admitted that some of the Doctor's countrymen and still more of his fair countrywomen have questioned the truth of the story about the Inverness launch, and have vowed to duck the narrator in the Ness, should he ever venture there again. " The greater the truth, the greater the libel ;'' but, after all, the story may be a very good one, though it may have uo foundation in fact. ROB ROY'S LAND. 55 The tract which we traversed this day, is the classic ground of Rob Ruy ; and one of that freebooter's fowling-pieces is kept in a cot on the road, as a proof. A more substantial evidence, however, of Rob's for- mer existence and power, is seen on our right, near Inversnaid, in the shape of a ruined fort, or rather barrack, erected there to check the phrenological propensities of the son of Gear Mhor, whose protuberances of combativeness and adhesiveness justly constituted him the leader of Caterans, and the follower of black cattle from Ben-Lawers to the Clyde. The fortress appears to be still more weakly manned than at the time Sir Walter Scott first visited it. When he applied to a peasant for the means of viewing the fort, he was told that the key was under the door, and that he would find no difficulty in his explorations ! LOCH LOMOND. Descending by a bridle road, little less precipitous than the side of Ben-Xevis, we brought up at a good specimen of a Highland LOCANDA, romantically situated at the side of a waterfall, and on the very verge of the placid Loch Lomond ; sheltered securely from the rude north- east blast, and open to the southern sun and western breeze. Here the " mountain dew," the oaten cake, the savour)* herring, and unsavoury cheese, went their merry rounds, with a zest furnished by the pelting storm, the drenching rains, and the active exercise of the morning, little felt in the precincts of St. James's, even after the funereal progression in Rotten-row, or the formidable excursion to the more distant gardens of Kensington. It was quite evident that the pallid beauties of Modern Babylon (several of whom were in the party) had already put on their travelling constitutions, and could bear the rains as well as the winds of heaven, without catching colds, rheumatisms, face-aches, or tooth-aches laying aside the thousand heart-aches consequent on doctors, apothe- caries, nurses and undertakers ! As a political economist, or a patron of the arts and sciences, it is not, perhaps, right to recommend a High- land campaign to the nobility and gentry of England, since it might deprive many able operatives among the different classes above-men- tioned of half their annual incomes besides increasing the population, already too exuberant. The " miseries of human life" have afforded themes for philosophers, poets, and novelists; why then (it may be said) should I suggest any measure that might prolong a drama, whose five acts are only five scenes of suffering ? Meanwhile the long sable banner floating in the air, and the double 56 LOCH LOMOND. line of sparkling foam on the surface of the water, proclaimed die approach of a visiter, that has given mortal offence to whole tribes of lake poets and sentimental tourists. What ? A steamer on Loch Lomond ! Foh ! The offence is rank, and smells or rather smokes to heaven. How monstrous, say the modern Sternes, to hear the plashing of paddles, the clanking of engines, and the belching of steam, where there ought to be no other sounds than the bleating of lambs, the piping of shepherds, and the cooing of doves ! How horrible to see smoke, and fire, and furnaces pervading the tranquil lake, instead of the small, white, and gliding sail, in keeping with the fleecy flocks on the mountain's side, and the pastoral crook on the projecting rock! Now, it is all very well for poets, painters, and Syntaxes in search of the sublime, who, like Thomson, delight to bask on the sunny side of " some romantic mountain," for days and weeks, meditating on Arca- dian simplicity and Utopian landscapes, which have never existed, except within the narrow boundaries of an enthusiast's skull, to declaim most eloquently and sentimentally against the steamer on Loch Lomond. For my own part, I think the said steamer is the greatest blessing that ever was conferred en the Lake. It enables hundreds, or rather thou- sands, every year, to enjoy the delightful scenery, who would otherwise never see it at all; and it diffuses many hundred pounds, annually, among the meanest cottages of the surrounding country, with equal advantage to the givers and receivers. Be it remembered, too, that we are not all poets, painters, and vision- aries. It is very certain that the world will not wag, unless some people work that those who toil for eleven months of the year have very little more than thirty-one days for relaxation and pleasure that STEAM abbreviates labour, saves time, and enlarges the sphere of ob- servation : therefore, say I, blessed be the man who first invented steam ! Perhaps this invocation of a blessing on steam was not quite uncon- nected with the contrast between the luxurious table d'hote of the steamer, and the sordid accommodation, which we found in the Inver- snaid Locanda. Not that I throw the slightest shade of reflexion on Inversnaid ; for there, as almost everywhere in the Highlands, the best that the house could afford was placed before us, and at a moderate charge. But in the steamer, we had plenty of every thing except WHISKEY, which, according to Breadalbane morality (afterwards to be noticed) was TABOOED interdicted denounced denaturalized ! We might drink nine fathoms deep of any thing but whiskey, which was an illegal, as well as irreligious, potation, thirty yards from Inversnaid, but perfectly legal, and, if I mistake not, very palatable, a few feet from the LOCH I.OMOXD. 57 steamer ! This is a nice distinction in morals ; but more of this hereafter. We are now steaming round Loch Lomond. This most beautiful of all the Scotch lakes might be compared to a peacock, whose long neck and sharp head penetrate among the deep recesses of the mountains whose sides or wings are adorned with exquisite plumage and whose broad and fan-like tail is studded, not with the eyes of Argus, but with the Isles of Atlantis, and the gardens of the Hesperides. Loch Lomond must, perhaps, cede in beauty to Como, Lugano, or even Lake Lemaii ; but it is equal to Lucerne, superior to Constance and well worth a journey from London to Dumbarton, were the tourist to see nothing else before his return to the British metropolis. A modern traveller, with great and real pretensions to pictorial judg- ment, has decided that " Loch Lomond is, unquestionably, the pride of our lakes incomparable in its beauty, as in its dimensions exceed- ing all others in variety as it does in extent and splendour uniting in itself every style of scenery which is found in the other lakes of the Highlands. I must even assign it the palm above Loch Cateran, It must be remembered that splendid and grand as are the landscapes of Loch Cateran, there is a uniformity, even in that variety, and that a sameness of character predominates every where. It possesses but one style. As to Loch Lomond, it offers points of comparison with all the other lakes possessing any picturesque beauty, for it has no blank. It presents no where that poverty of aspect which marks nearly three-fourths of Loch Cateran. With respect to style, its upper extremity may be com- pared with the finest views on Loch Awe. There are also points in this division not dissimilar to the finer parts of the Trosachs, and fully equal to them in wild grandeur*." THE LEVEN. Debarking from the little steamer that has swept its foaming circuit round the romantic shores of Loch Lomond added a few wreaths of smoky laurels to the forehead of old BEX regaled the senses of its passengers with mountain and lake scenery of the first order whetted our appetites by the keenness of the air, and effectually assuaged them by substantial salmon we pursue the crystal stream of the Leven, during its short course, till swallowed up by the turbid Clyde at Dum- barton. Still we are on classic ground. No sooner has the cave of * Highlands and Wands of Scotland. Vol. i. p. 209. 58 LE YEN SMOLLETT. ROB ROY receded from view, than the monument of Smollett rises in sight. The inimitable author of Roderick Random was born on the banks of the clearest stream in Scotland, and lies buried on the banks of the most turbid river in Italy. He, whose youthful imagination has been delighted with the exquisite delineations of Smollett's pen, will hardly fail to stop arid sigh, if not shed a tear, at the foot of his monu- ment, whether on the Arno or the Leven. I have had the melancholy pleasure of inscribing my name, as a testimony of my gratitude and admiration for the dead, in both places and, during the remainder of the drive from. Loch Lomond to Dumbarton, the characters and scenes of Roderick Random, Peregrine. Pickle, and Humphrey Clinker, so com- pletely excluded all impressions of the natural scenery through which I passed, that I know no more of it than I do of the darkest catacombs on the banks of the Nile. Reflection is a sad marplot of perception ; and often have I had to lament that intensity of thought has disturbed or superseded accuracy of observation. The sensorium, too much occupied with its own internal operations, neglects or turns a deaf ear to the reports of the senses from without and thus, opportunities are lost which can never be recalled ! DUMBARTON. At the end of a short drive, we are roused from our reminiscences of the bard of Leven, by a stupendous object of great interest. An insulated and almost perpendicular rock, some five or six hundred feet high, springing from an alluvial beach, crowned with battlements, chronicled in history, and commanding the most extensive views of a majestic river, an Alpine coast, and a boundless ocean, is well worth an attentive survey from the plain below, and a laborious ascent to its highest pin- nacle. The venerable summit of the most ancient and the most im- pregnable fortress of Caledonia is disfigured I had almost said, defiled by tasteless and inappropriate buildings. I sincerely hope that the indignant genius of old Ben-Lomond will, one of these days, send down such a potent blast from his powerful lungs, as shall pitch the governor's house, with all its etceteras (except the inmates) clean into the Clyde, to be replaced by structures more castellated in form, and more anti- quated in appearance. The projection of such a basaltic rock through an alluvial stratum, on this confluent angle of the Leven and the Clyde, affords a fine example of one of those stupendous operations of nature during some of her con- DUMBARTON. 59 vulsive and intestine struggles, not much inferior to those which heaved Ailsa and Staffa from the unfathomable bed of the ocean. It would be strange if such a locality were scanty of historical inci- dents and legendary lore. Dumbarton rock and castle are not deficient in this respect ; but these I must pass over. We cannot help shudder- ing at the idea of treading on the same stones that were polluted by the treacherous foot of a MENTEITH and our indignation changes into sorrow, when we sit down on a fragment of that ruined tower, where a WALLACE pined in captivity, before he was delivered up to the southron foeman ! THE CLYDE. The Clyde is the most Christian river on which I have ever had the good luck to sail. There are more crosses planted on its banks than on the banks of the Tiber, or in half the Catholic churchyards of Oberland or the Vaudois Sir Walter Scott frequently calls it the " brim-fu' Clyde" and so it is, especially at high water, when, like a drove of wild Highland cattle, it often manifests a strong dislike to leave its own bonny Scotland, and takes every opportunity of sideling to the right and to the left, if not controlled by sticks and stones. It is also a very noisy river, from the moment that it leaps over huge ledges of rock, near Lanark, and foams through a rugged channel past the yet more noisy colony of Mr. Owen, till its waters are mixed with the ocean, and flow r through the kyles of Bute, and fifty other boisterous and dangerous passages, among the Hebridean Cyclades the pibroch, the pipes, and the fiddle intermingling their melodious notes with the hundred dialects and intonations of English and Scotch, of Gaelic and of Erse, not omitting the equally intelligible language and music of kyloes, sheep, hogs, dogs, poultry, and various other biped and quadruped passengers up and down the Clyde, bent on different errands. A stranger standing on Wallace's Tower at the summit of Dumbarton Castle, and surveying the majestic Clyde, would be tempted to imagine that the thousand factories of cotton, calico, and cutlery, erected on the banks of the river, together with all their beams, traddles, and shuttles, had taken it into their heads to have an excursion, by steam, as well as their masters ; and, with laudable Scotch industry, were combining pleasure with profit, and keeping their clanking machinery, plashing paddles, and roaring steam blasts, in full play from the Gorbals of Glas- gow to the Castle of Rothsay. The surface of the waters presents some curious phenomena. It 15 60 THE CLYDE. ploughed into broad furrows, resembling deep, but boiling and eddying streams, on each side of which is a white and foaming torrent, like that so often seen coming down a mountain gully after a heavy shower ; while diagonal and constantly widening lines of waves diverge from the track of one ploughing machine, till they meet and clash with those of an- other, pursuing the same or opposite courses. Meantime the atmosphere is in keeping with, and characteristic of, the great city of Glasgow. It is a huge canopy of tartan, or df striped calico, produced by long narrow lines of smoke, drawn out to intermi- nable lengths, crossing each other in a hundred directions, on every breeze, and chequered with the still narrower lines of grey steam perpe- tually issuing from the safety-valves of the boilers. The " daughter of the Dawn" was just beginning to tread, with her rosy feet, the summits of the mountains, when we were falling down, with the ebb tide, from the little harbour of Dumbarton, and crossing the broad shadow which the rock cast on the smooth water beneath. Saunders, the boatman, whose eyes were scarcely open, had yet an eye to economy, and wishing to shorten his course and abridge his labour, grounded us hard and fast on a point which was rapidly becoming bare by the recession of the tide. This false economy occasioned honest Sawney treble the work he would otherwise have had and at length we gained the stream. GREENOCK. I wonder that some of our descriptive and picturesque tourists do not spend " six weeks on the Clyde," instead of " six weeks on the Rhine" exploring its shores and the innumerable lochs, creeks, and sounds that lie about its debouches. There is no lack of castles, ruins, islands, ships, rocks, mountains, cascades, lakes, cliffs, forests, villas, towns, commerce and cultivation, to fill their albums and even make a costly quarto into the bargain. " The Clyde, always spacious, and always covered with its shipping, offers a scene of life and brilliancy, unparal- leled on any of our sea-shores, and enhanced by the majestic screen of mountains to the north, for ever varying, under the changes of a restless atmosphere; but, under all these changes, for ever magnificent." Greenock, which, to a Southron ear or fancy, conveys no other idea than that of Wapping or Rotherhithe, is not only most beautifully situated ; but is, in fact, one of the most extraordinary spots I have ever visited. I once thougbt that the tide of human existence flowed about Charing- cross and Cornhill, with unrivalled velocity ; but Greenock surpasses either of these confluences. From morn till night, ten minutes seldom GRRENOCK. Gl elapse without the advent or departure of from one to ten or fifteen steamers, of all sizes, and fraught with all kinds of cargoes, living and dead, animal and vegetable. The roar of the steam and the plash of the paddles never cease for an instant the wharfs perpetually vibrate with the concussions of the vessels crowds of men, women, and chil- dren are constantly climbing up and jumping down, in and out of the steamers while the quays are covered with passengers and packages, pressing, flowing, jostling, and tumbling, in such intricate mazes and gyrations, that the head of the spectator becomes giddy with the tumult and confusion. As every steamer that enters or sails from the Clyde, touches, for a few minutes, at Greenock ; some faint idea of this moving scene may be conceived ; but it is from the pencil of a Wilkie or a Cruikshank that any very sensible or tangible image could be conveyed to the eye^/ If Cruikshank were to seat himself on a herring barrel, a few hours in front of the Custom-house at Greenock, with a pot of stout or a stoup of whiskey at his side, he might draw a picture from life, without any exaggeration, that would convulse the metropolis with laughter, from Hyde-park to the London-docks*. When tired or satisfied with the tumultuous scene of the quays at Greenock, the traveller may ascend, in half an hour, the heights above the port, and there behold one of the finest views in Scotland. The noble screen of the Argyleshire mountains, rising peak over peak, till they vanish in the sky, forms a magnificent distance to the picture, Avhile the middle ground is occupied by the broad expanse of the Clyde, gay with shipping in every direction. Still nearer ^ the port of Greenock itself, crowded with masts, and sails, and steam chimnies, and buildings, forms an appropriate foreground to a panorama, as variegated as it is picturesque. With a spirit more restless and impatient than falls to the lot of most mortals, I spent two days at Greenock, without the slightest approach to ennui the comfortable TONTINE furnishing me with ample refection after the toils and pleasures of the day. Let no traveller grudge a day or two at Greenock and its vicinity. * Some conception may be formed of the effects of steam on the Clyde, when it is stated that an old woman, and one or two of ten bairns, can now gather together the chickens, and eggs that used to be eaten, if produced at all, in the wildest glens of the most barren isles of the Hebrides embark in a steamer sell her cargo in Greenock or Glasgow and be back again in a day or two to her native haunt?, with money to pay the rent of her cot and acre for a whole year ! 62 HELENBURGH. HELENBURGH PANNANICH. So, then, the good folks of the Clyde and Argyleshire have not pure water enough from the clouds above, and from their rocky springs, pebble-bottomed streams, and glassy lakes below; but they must drench themselves at a foul fountain near the Kyles of Bute, pregnant with nauseous ingredients of the most scientific description, nearly as difficult to pronounce as terrible to swallow the scourings, doubtless, of some tannery, blanket manufactory, or soap boilery, in the nether world. That the spinning Jocks and Jennies of Glasgow should take a sum- mer trip down the Clyde, to inhale the fresh breezes of the Atlantic, and clear their pipes of the cotton, cobwebs, and carbon, therein accu- mulated during the winter, is rational enough ; but that the Highlanders and islanders, who may be said to live in a kind of perpetual shower- bath, and whose interiors are as familiar with whiskey, as their exteriors are with rain that whole clans of the M'Donalds, M'Leans, M'Gregors, M'Leods, M'Phersons, and M'Dougalls, should be seized with an annual fit of hydro-mania, or preference of stinking water to mountain dew, may appear somewhat strange more especially as the springs of Pan- nanich do not perfume the air with those sulphureous odours that ex- hale from the waters of Harrogate, and which used to find such favour with the olfactories of our Caledonian neighbours ! Be this as it may, it is astonishing what ample justice the Highlanders do to the healing springs of this place " for they sit from morning to night by the side of the wells, drinking as often as they can make room for a fresh sup- ply." It has been keenly remarked by a modern traveller, that " if a man's carcase is to be scoured of all diseases as you can scour a house, their practice is perfect." But why should not Highlanders have their holidays as well as Sassenachs ? It is not the medicinal properties of the springs at Chel- tenham and Leamington that work the miraculous healing powers which are ascribed to them. It is the change of scene and air the change of hours and habits the abstraction from business the dissipa- tion of care in short, the new stimulus given to the morale, rather than the operation of salt water on the physique, which performs the won- derful renovation of health. Let, therefore, the pale and sickly beauties of Glasgow imitate their southern sisters, by " picking cockle-shells in the sand reading novels riding on asses raffling at libraries buying spars wishing for dinner first, and bed-time afterwards and LOCH FINE HERRINGS. 63 labouring, strenua inertia, to be happy; or to imagine themselves happy." It is often by means of these little trifles that mortals regain that greatest of blessings HEALTH ! LOCH FINE HERRINGS. LOCH FINE is decidedly the finest loch in Scotland for HERRINGS. We scent them in every gale we taste them in every dish we see them on every table we almost feel them through the bottom of the steamer as we sail up the Loch ! In fine (I mean Loch Fine) every conversation smacks of herrings, at this season of the year, and often consists of nothing else ! So, then, Anderson and Pennant have been hoaxing us in high style respecting the annual migrations of herrings ! The flight of Xenophon's Greeks from Cunaxa, or of Napoleon's eagles from Moscow, has not been half so accurately traced as the routes of that innumerable army of herrings that starts, annually, from the North Pole, and pushes its legions into every creek, from Iceland to the Azores. The above-men- tioned authors, and especially Anderson, must have been quarter-mas- ters-general in the army of fins. Mr. Anderson avers, and Pennant believes that, in Iceland, the herrings are tivo feet in length, and that, when the army breaks up from winter quarters round the Pole, it is pursued by numerous sea monsters, especially by whales, who, like many droll fishes on dry land, have a great hankering after things which they cannot swallow or digest that the army of fins divides into two great columns, the eastern, scouring the coast of Norway, penetrating the Baltic, the Zuyder Zee, and various other inlets while the western column makes for Shetland and the Orkneys, and onwards to Scotland and the Hebrides, some going round through the Straits of Dover, and others by Ireland, till they unite their forces once more in the great Atlantic. Now all this is a very beautiful romance, containing about as much matters of fact as the " Mysteries of TJdolpho," or any other fashionable novel. Yet, upon the accuracy of these details of herring campaigns, many thousands, perhaps millions, have been expended by fishing companies, all, or most of them, ending as did the South Sea scheme ! It is probable, indeed, that herrings, like many other folks, have a great propensity to make summer excursions to the lochs and islands of Scotland, the shores of the Baltic, and the coasts of France and England returning, when the frolic is over, to their unseen and unknown haunts in the unfathomable depths of the Western Ocean. Like other tourists, too, they have evinced a most capricious taste, in 64 EAST TARBET. their searches after the sublime and beautiful hence the routes laid down by Anderson and Pennant, are now as antiquated as the itineraries of Smellfungus and other sentimental travellers of the last century. It is curious, however, that these inconstant lovers of the scaly tribe have still preserved a wonderful partiality for Loch Fine probably from respect to that king of Highland chiefs, the Duke of Argyle, whose liberality every traveller must bless, for permitting the use of whiskey toddy, and abolishing the use of toll-bars throughout his dominions ! May his Grace never want a fine salt herring for his supper, and a mutchkin of Glenlivet to frighten the nightmare from his Grace's couch, and chase the blue devils from his Grace's breakfast ! EAST TARBET. The steamer which was expected to convey us to Inverary, darted suddenly into the harbour of East Tarbet, and our voyage was unexpect- edly terminated for the time. In this little fishing town, where we anticipated bad accommodations, we found, in a small inn, the most comfortable quarters. Peggy and her mistress were all good nature, activity, and kindness. Every thing which the town could afford, and more than princes require, were at our beck. An excellent dinner, good beds, and assiduous attention were given us, for a mere trifle. I shall never cease to compare and contrast the luxury of a little inn at Tarbet, with the " splendid misery" of a " family hotel," in Edinburgh or London ! Long experience and knowledge of the world, indeed, had taught me not to seek for happiness in high places, nor despair of com- fort under the humble roof ! The narrow isthmus which connects East and West Tarbet, is not much more than a mile in extent. We wandered across it, one beautiful and still evening in August, calling up, in memory, the historical asso- ciations connected with the furtive expedition of MAGNUS the Norwegian king, and the patriotic march of the noble Bruce over the same ground in days of yore. . " It was a wondrous sight to see Topmast and pennon glitter free, High raised above the greenwood tree, As on dry land the galley moves, By eliffs and copse, and alder groves." It is a still more wondrous sight to see a steamer dart across the same isthmus, a little farther north, (Crinan Canal,) without the assistance of human muscles without oars or sails. REDUNDANT POPULATION. 65 While sitting on one of the turrets of the old ruined castle that over- looks the town and harbour of East Tarbet, now watching the approach of the far-distant steamer that was to carry us to Inverary again, sur- veying the long lines of herring-busses, moored in the harbour, and canopied with their sable nets, conveying some idea of the funeral procession of some great marine deity I found my mind entangled in a deep cogitation on the ultimate effects of REDUNDANT POPULATION ! a strange subject for contemplation in the Highlands ! The links of that chain of association which connected this reverie with its primary cause or starting point, were entirely lost, though there can be no doubt that they were all regularly catenated, as cause and effect, notwithstand- ing that the last and most impressive link only had now possession of the sensorium. As the steamer was six miles distant, and my compa- nions were sauntering through the town, I determined to have my solitary rumination as well as Malthus or any of his disciples. The annual increase of population in our towns and villages, and the rapid spread of cultivation in the wilds of America and Austra- lia, leave no doubt in any rational mind that, unless new worlds are discovered, or our present globe takes a fit of growing larger, (which, by the bye, as a MOTHER, she ought occasionally to do,) a time will come, when the products of our earth shall barely supply the consump- tion of its inhabitants, and when a check, moral or physical, must occur to the rate, at which the MAN-FACTORY (if such a term be allowed) is now working. The optimists, or Candides, assure us that nature or nature's God did not confer on man the power of multiplying, without endowing the earth which he inhabits with the capability of supplying all the necessaries of life *. This is a very beautiful and consolatory doctrine; but unfortunately there is also one awkward piece of modern experience that crosses the path of the optimist. The Celestial Empire presents an example of what may be fairly called the saturated point of * I once fell in with a most remarkable specimen of the nearly worn-out sect of " Perfectibility" philosophers, while travelling from Carlisle to Penryn. A passenger was remarking on the contrast between the fertile plains around us and the Highlands of Scotland. " The wildest parts of the Highlands," observed an elderly gentleman, in broad Scotch, " will one day be as fertile and as well cultivated as these plains." In. deed, said I, will the savage scene around Loch Scavig, in the Isle of Sky, be ever cultivated ? " Certainly," he replied. What will become of the rocks, I inquired ? " They will be carried away to other countries, to build houses, bridges, and other works. In short," continued this optimist, " if the population of these isles were to increase a hundred or a thousand fold, the wisdom of God and the ingenuity of man will find ample means of sustenance for them all, without any necessity for emigration." Such happy anticipations I should be sorry to disturb; but the idea of Loch Scavig becoming as fertile as Lancashire, tickled my fancy for some days afterwards. F 66 REDUNDANT POPULATION. population. For many centuries, China has seldom supplied more than a sufficiency of food and other necessaries for the existing inhabitants. But as these have constantly tended to increase more or less, the same as in all other countries, what has been the consequence of the SATURA- TION ? INFANTICIDE in ordinary and famine, with its necessary ac- companiment, PESTILENCE, in extraordinary years ! ! It is of no use to blink the question. This must be the final state of every country, unless the march of intellect discovers some moral or physical check to the existing progress of population, which has hitherto eluded the search of philosophers. It is idle to talk about the thousands or mil- lions of uncultivated acres in England. Their cultivation will protract, but not prevent the ultimate point of saturation, as in China. The wilds of America may, and probably will, become a garden ; and the interior of Australia, if it be not a " lake of the dismal swamp," may one day be as populous as Holland ; but the progress of population will absorb or swallow up every capability of the earth, and bring it to the state of the " Celestial Empire" at last*. That most orthodox monarch, of blessed and pious memory, Henry the Eighth, has greatly accelerated the miseries of England, by abolishing convents and monasteries, those sacred moral checks to redundant population. It was a sad oversight of our early REFORMERS, some centuries back, to allow the clergy to marry, and thus to encumber themselves with the worldly cares of a numerous progeny. No class of society contributes more to redundancy of population than the pastors. Our modern RE- FORMERS should mind this. The Mouvement party in France are blind to the future, by relaxing the reins of Romish discipline on this point. Let them look to the States of the Church in fair Italy. There the celibacy of monks and nuns, aided by the slender diet of Lent, and some other means which cannot be revealed to ears of flesh, has had a most salutary effect in checking the multiplication of our species, and keeping the people below the point of saturation f. * It is not a little curious, that the arch infidel, Voltaire, has stated the case exactly, in one of his fables. Speaking of the ultimate effects of redundant population, he makes one of the personages say " Dans ce cas, il faudroit que la terre rendit le double de ce qu'elle rend ou qu'il y auroit le double de pauvres ou qu'il faudroit avoir le double sur l'tranger on envoyer la moitie de la nation en Amerique ou que la moitie de la nation mange at Vautre?'' As America will one day close her ports against our people, when they shall have too many of their own, it seems that the last alternative of Voltaire will be our lot ! f The climate of Italy, however, must be taken into account, as a check to redundant population. Thus, in any given number, or in the total population of Italy, the annual mortality is just double that of an equal number in England. Let us suppose, what REDUNDANT POPULATION FISHERIES. 67 But is there no bright side, or relief, to the picture ? It is evident that a long period must elapse before we shall find ourselves in the unenviable predicament of the Celestial Empire before the forests of Canada shall disappear the banks of the Allegany and Mississippi present the cultivation of those of the Thames and the Clyde and Van Diernen's Land become an Isle of Wight. But when all these proba- bilities shall have been realized, there may be resources in store for the cravings of human appetite, and the support of rising generations. There is every reason to believe that the solid portions of our globe are not the only parts that present a redundant population. In the ocean, as well as upon dry laud, the first law of nature is " eat or be eaten." If man did not devour or destroy his predecessors and compe- titors in the animal kingdom, they would eat and exterminate him. The inhabitants of the boundless deep appear to be even more carni- vorous, or at least piscivorous than man. It is possible that some of the minor tribes may live upon water alone ; but it is certain that almost the whole of the marine aristocracy feed on the flesh of their inferiors. The monarch of the floods (and the same observation might possibly apply to monarchs on dry land) is far less voracious than the generality of his subjects. The whale is contented with a sprat for his supper ; while the shark, not half the size of a whale's fin, will bolt a seven pound piece of salt junk, hook and all, at the risk of his life. As the density of population increases, and the relief of emigration diminishes, the supply of the luxuries of life must give way to the supply of the necessaries. Man must learn to live more on vegetable, than on animal food, because the same space of ground that supports one man on the latter, will support twenty on the former. But, as a gradation in this descending scale of diet, the ocean offers one of immense magnitude and utility. Fish, to an almost unlimited extent, may be procured for the subsistence of man ; and a time must come when prudence, as well as patriotism will encourage fisheries, by inducing the better classes to curb their carnivorous propensities, and keep Lent six or nine months in the year, before they are compelled to live entirely on potatoes. indeed is true, that, in an English town, the population doubles in twenty-eight years. Now if the annual mortality were, in that town, exactly what it is in Naples one in twenty-eight the population, instead of doubling, would be precisely the same at the end of the twenty-eight years, as it was in the beginning. But as the ratio of mortality is one in fifty-six the population doubles in the above period. It is remarkable that writers on political economy have passed over this cause of redundant populationthe salubrity of our climate. T 2 68 REDUNDANT POPULATION FISHERIES. In fine, when people in easy circumstances shall dine more frequently on salmon, sole, and cod, than on beef, venison, and pheasant, they will tend to convert pasturage into corn fields, and felons into fishermen. They will open out an immense source of employment for the idle, and of food for the hungry an employment not calculated to increase the redundancy of population and a species of food that is sufficiently nutritious, without being stimulating to either our corporeal or mental organization. This proposition has the advantage of being capable of practical ap- plication. Let the master or mistress of a family order fish, andjish only (with bread and farinaceous food) two days in the week, and the work of utility is half achieved. The Chinese, who labour under great disadvantages, on account of the vast extent of inland territory, have, nevertheless, availed themselves of the resources of the ocean, in a very remarkable manner. There, we see millions of human beings who are born on the water, live on the water, and die on the water, without ever possessing a " local habita- tion," or perhaps setting a foot on the soil. Their fishing FLEETS are organized with the greatest regularity commanded by skilful ADMIRALS disciplined by experienced OFFICERS, of all grades and manoeuvred by myriads, whose natural element is the ocean *. England is most felicitously circumstanced in this respect. If her line of coast could be measured, from Scilly to Feroe, with all the creeks and indentations of her thousand isles, it would probably outmeasure the whole sea-board from Ushant to the East Indies. Such are the resources of her seas that, if there was not an ox or a sheep, a pig or a duck, a fowl or a pheasant, a hare or a stag, on the whole face of Great Britain, her twenty millions of inhabitants might draw ample and wholesome pro- visions from the depths of the ocean and the surface of the soil. But, in political economy, the work of reformation must, like charity, begin at home. If families and individuals do not practise and promote morality and temperance, frugality and industry, the enactments of the legislature will prove a dead letter, if not a delusion. * These fleets are more useful than the fleets of European states, which, although they tend to check population, occasion a heavy expense to the nation at large, and bring nothing eatable into the market at last. They are not ' fishers of men," but slayers of mankind and Europe will, one day, find it necessary to convert cannon into fish-hooks, and gunpowder into bay-salt. 69 CRINAN CANAL. I long had my doubts whether the Scotch came originally from Ire- land, or the Irish from Scotland. The navigation of the Crinan Canal determined my conviction that the Highlands were peopled from the Emerald Isle. Who but Irishmen would dream of cutting a ship canal over hill and dale, through marble and granite, while a tract of level and soft soil lay contiguous, and very little raised above the surface of the ocean ? But this is not all. In carrying the canal over, not through, a considerable elevation in a rocky valley, the vessel is mounted on the shoulders of nine locks all of which might have been spared, by lower- ing the bed of the canal, instead of raising the water over the hill ! Be this as it may, the Crinan Canal is fast verging to decay ; and it is highly probable that another and better will be formed near it, at much less expense. We are no sooner clear of the western extremity of the Crinan, than we find ourselves involved among a Cyclades of islands, where the tides rush and run, whirl and foam, clash and fret, in a most surprising, and indeed alarming manner. I have been through the Pentland Firth, the Race of Alderney, the Roup na Ran of the Ganges, and many a rapid tide-way, on the surface of this fractured globe ; but I confess that the tumultuous currents among a group of islands which I am unable to pronounce (Macfadyen, Rusantrue, Resave, Garvrisa, Baisker, &c., being the most euphonous,) excited no common emotions in my mind ; though to those unacquainted with the dangers of such places, the scene would probably appear rather pleasing than formi- dable. The celebrated CORRIVRECHAN was on our larboard bow, and the romantic Loch Craignish, on our starboard beam ; yet, with the exception of two or three gentlemen resident near this locality, not one of the fifty passengers on board knew any thing of the islands through which we were steering. There is little merit in an old sailor being able to recognize, by chart and compass, the channels through which he sails, and the headlands of the neighbouring coasts ; but this scanty merit excited some wonder, and I believe, incredulity, when I mentioned the names of places, as we passed along, and yet confessed that this was the first time I had been here. This was a species of divination, quite unintelligible to landsmen, but of very easy explanation among the salt- water tribe of tourists. In sailing through this northern Cyclades, the geologist will find much gratification. Every quarter of a mile that we proceed, we see natural walls, mostly perpendicular, on the right hand and on the left, CORRIVRECHAN. stretching away up into the interior. These are of the same formation as the basaltic columns of Staffa, but taking the exact form of stone walls built by hands. Were these formed by design ? If so, for what purpose ? CORRIVRECHAN. We need not travel to the celebrated Strait that separates Rhegium from " Trinacria's burning isle," to see a whirlpool nor to the dreary shores of Norway, to behold a Mahlstrom. We have one within a few hours sail of Oban namely, between the northern point of Jura, and the southern rocks " Of Scarba's Isle, whose tortur'd shore Still rings to CORREVRECHAN'S roar." The first time I sailed through the Faro of Messina, my classical associations experienced a great damper, when I found that I had so little chance of being swallowed up in the waves of Charybdis, or dashed poetically to pieces against the rocks of Scylla. Those who have read Leyden's beautiful poem, the " Mermaid," or the Legends of Cor- rivrechan on which it is founded ; and who may pass the whirlpool, on a fine summer's morning in the steamer, will doubtless be much disap- pointed at not finding a Mahlstrom or Charybdis among the Western Islands. In calm weather, and at high or low water, a slight skiff might navigate the Corrivrechan, and an inobservant traveller would probably remark little more than the frowning cliffs, the splintered rocks, and the wave-worn caverns on each side of the Sound. In calm weather, too, even when the flood or ebb makes, especially in the neaps, the water is smooth and clear ; but it is a current of melting and boiling glass " streaming and whirling, in all sorts of evolutes and involutes of curves, and running forward, all the while, like a mill-stream, whirl- pool, curves, and all." But when a gale of wind from the westward, with its concomitant surge and swell, meets the spring flood from the eastward, rushing through the Strait of Corrivrechan at the rate of nine miles an hour, then, indeed, an elemental conflict takes place, in which the finest ship would quickly perish. In the narrow passage between Jura and Scarba, lies a sunken rock, or rather an island, with a broad base, occupying a considerable portion of the bottom of the Sound, and rising, like a huge pyramid, to within fifteen fathoms of the surface. In spring tides, the tremendous and rapid gush of the flood, from the south-east, impinges against this gigantic submarine breakwater; and part of it surging over the obstacle, and coming in collision with the GARVELOCH MISS MARTINEAU. 71 Atlantic swell, rises in a ridge, with a crest of foam, forming the first, and not the least formidable line of breakers in this dangerous strait. The great body of the flood tide, however, is repelled and reflected, laterally, from the submarine pyramid, and takes the direction of Scarba, against whose rugged and iron-bound coast it dashes with indescribable fur) T , and with a noise like peals of thunder, reverberated from cliff to cliff, and re-echoed from cavern to cavern. Repulsed again from this impregnable barrier of rock and cliff, and encountering the winds and waves from the Western Ocean, a portion of the furious tide sweeps round and round, in tumultuous gyrations, till it falls into the same roaring torrent, whence it first issued. Here is the most distinct scene of the whirlpool, or Gulf of Corrivrechan. But quickly the sound, from Scarba to Jura, becomes the theatre of the most terrific combat between conflicting elements, that human eye ever witnessed a war between storms and surges from the west, and tides and tor- rents from the east, that baffles all description. To see Corrivrechan in high feather, with the sense of terror added to the sublimity of the scene, it would be necessary to drift into the vortex, during a storm and flood tide. The spectator of the splendid phenomenon, however, would never tell the tale, nor delineate the event by pen or pencil. The tourist, therefore, had better scale one of the crags on the Scarba side of the Strait, and there observe the elemental conflict one of the sources of the sublime subtracted the feeling of personal danger. I think, upon the whole, this would be the safest procedure : for although the maid of Colonsay's lover, when swallowed up in the Corrivrechan, was hospitably received by the Mermaid and her court, in the depths of the whirlpool, and ultimately effected his escape; yet I can hardly believe that Leyden himself would try the experiment, though entitled to high poetic honours in the sparry grottoes of his mermaid nymph. GARVELOCH. The scanty population of Garveloch is diminished rather than in- creased, since the time of Miss Martineau's farmers the Murdochs, the Ellas, and the Anguses. There is now but one farm in the chief island, and we look in vain for the wild boy Archie, climbing the STORR, in search of gannets, or the industrious Ronald, burning kelp on the shore *. * Miss Martiueau, it is quite evident, never visited the scene of her very interesting little political novel. If she had, she svould not have located her heroine on the Garve- 72 GARVELOCH MISS MARTINEAU. It is a wonder that the talented author of dramatised political eco- nomy, should have placed Ella of Garveloch so near the Corrivrechan, without once alluding to that interesting object. By the way, Miss M. has copied the famous boat scene, almost verbatim from MacCulloch, without any symptom of quotation. By this procedure generally the fair economist has greatly enhanced her own fame; since forty-nine, out of every fifty of her readers, know nothing of the sources whence she draws her information, and therefore give her credit for originality, where she only finds the thread or tale that binds the fragments toge- ther. Since Miss Martineau's establishment of a communication be- tween Garveloch and Oban, by means of Angus and Ella's boat, there has been wonderful progress in the art as well as the science of political economy, among the islanders, as the following statement will show. My authority is the skipper of the vessel in which we were embarked. A sloop, laden with oatmeal, and insured for double her value, took it into her head to run away with her crew, one day, in the Sound of Jura, and to make directly for Corrivrechan, during a strong flood tide and western gale. The master and men did all in their power (so they said) to turn the sloop from her fatal course, but in vain. They, therefore, took to their boat, and, with difficulty landed on the eastern shore of Jura. The sloop made two or three heavy plunges, bows under, on reaching the first line of the eastern surges was soon en- tangled in the broken water whirled round and round in the great eddy and disappeared among the tremendous breakers of the outer, or western line. The regular affidavits having been made, as to the loss of the sloop, the insurance was demanded. But, to the consternation of the captain, and the joy of the underwriters, the vessel was discovered, a few days afterwards, by some fishermen, high and dry in a creek on the western shore of Colonsay ! The cargo was very little damaged, a thin stratum only of the oatmeal, on the surface, being baked into a kind of cake, by the sea water, and serving as a defence against the further penetration of the moisture. It appeared that the mermaid's court, in the crystal caves of Corri- vrechan, either did not like, or did not want, a cargo of oatmeal at that time ; and therefore the sloop was thrown up, uninjured, from the briny deep, carried to sea by the flood tide and cast on the shore of a neighbouring island by the ebb. Whether this almost miraculous pre- loch Isles. A very intelligent clergyman residing near Crinan, observed to me that, had she placed the domicile of Ella on SCAKBA, the story would have possessed all the ne- cessary unities of the drama; but as it is, the natives of these parts are furnished with a handle for criticism, which they do not fail to use, when the subject is discussed. INVERARY. 73 serration did or did not actually happen, I can only give the above authority but I have no hesitation in saying that it ought to have occurred since political justice is a necessary ingredient in political economy. It is now time to return, from this short excursion, to the little port of Crinan, where we found a steamer proceeding up Loch Fine. INVERARY. Delightfully situated between a smiling town and a romantic eminence at the confluence of a winding stream and noble lake embosomed in beautiful plantations and surrounded, for many miles, by magnificent woods, pleasure-grounds, hills, valleys, rocks, and cascades, stands the silent, solitary, and sombre castle of Inverary not as a ruin, but as a modern palace, completely prepared for the reception of a splendid or even royal retinue. The gate of the park stands open for the stranger and we approach the massive edifice, without seeing the human form, or hearing the human voice. We are not even challenged by that most faithful and vigilant vidette the dog. Yet the gardens, the walks, the shrub- beries, are all in the most perfect order. We make the circuit of the princely mansion, and even peep over the massive balustrades into the areas ; but all is silent as the palace of Diomede, in the street of tombs, in Pompeii ! We stop under the portico, and, after some hesitation, sound the bell, whose funereal tones echo and re-echo through the long arcades. A solemn and protracted pause ensues, and once more we toll the heavy bell. We commence our retreat, when a footstep is heard, and the portal opens. We are conducted, politely and respect- fully, through the spacious and warlike hall along galleries of paint- ings through tapestried apartments, and richly furnished bed and banquetting rooms while female, or even male visiters, have often the pleasure of taking a glance at their own dear figures and faces in the splendid mirrors that have often reflected the elegant form of the Duchess herself! I have nothing to do with description. A thousand tourists have delineated this paradise of the Highlands, with all its majestic woods, venerable avenues, interminable promenades, and romantic scenery. The view from the Fair)' Mount, or rather mountain of Duniquaich, might well compete with many that have been celebrated by our petits- maitres, who have examined every country except their own. But why this solitude in such a fairy scene and that, too, in the '4 DALMALLf. month of August, when the metropolis is deserted, and when every one who has a horse to ride, or a leg to stand on, rushes into the country ? The reasons may be good and numerous; but I cannot help thinking that some of the following ones enter into the catalogue. It is possible that HERRINGS have at last become stale acquaintances, and conse- quently dull society, for Dukes and Duchesses of Argyle that trees are without tongues, though they return a melancholy moan to the mountain breeze that rocks only reverberate the sounds they receive that cascades emit the same hoarse and unvaried note " From night till morn, from morn till dewy eve" that the music of the lark, the thrush, and the nightingale, pall on the sense, for want of that succession of new performers, which we have at the Opera, the Oratorio, and the Harmonicon that the cooing of the dove can be little understood where " Love is but an empty sound, The modern fair one's jest" that the health resulting from pure air and rustic exercise, is never appreciated till it is lost that, in fine, the most beautiful scenery in the world soon grows insipid without society ; and that solitude is only suited to the hermit, who, having determined to live upon roots, can have no possible need of more ideas than the porker Zimmerman to the contrary notwithstanding. DALMALLY. There is, as every Scottish tourist knows, a large inn at Inverary and a large I had nearly said, a larger innkeeper. This shrewd, good- humoured, and facetious host recommended to us an excellent horse and car, of his own, to cross the lofty ridge of mountain that separates Loch Fine from Loch Awe, on the highest point of which is the spot where Burke surveyed the most sublime and magnificent scene he had ever beheld. The appointed hour for starting was ten o'clock; but it was twelve before ROANAN (for that was the horse's name) stood at the door of the head inn. It appeared that ROAM AN was kept on " board wages" that is, nothing per day, with liberty to find his own supper ,on the mountains at night. Like the fair Caledonian rustics on Sun- days, he had, that morning, come down to Inverary, barefooted, and consequently required a pair, at least, of shoes, for the journey to Dal- mally. While the hostler was labouring hard to make the girths meet round the portly corporation of Roanan, an arch leer played on the features of his rubicund master, contrasting strongly with the air of ROANAN AND BURKE ON THE SUBLIME* *J5 discontent, indeed of downright anger, which displayed itself in the ears, the eyes, and the whole countenance of Roanan. But however different were these two personages, in the furniture of their attic stories, there was a wonderful similarity between Roanan and his mas- ter in the middle regions, as far as dimensions were concerned. The former seemed to have collected the grass of a whole mountain's side into his capacious paunch, during the night ; while the latter proved, to a demonstration, that the noble science of gastronomy was cultivated, with success, very far to the north of the Albion Tavern. Winding through the beautiful grounds of Argyle, we had scarcely ascended three or four miles of the mountain before honest Roanan was completely BLOWN, and, despite of the kicking, pricking, whipping, and vociferating of the driver, refused, most doggedly, to proceed a step farther with his present cargo. It was quite clear, indeed, that Roanan had lost all taste for the sublime, and that he was silently pouring out curses, from the deepest recesses of his soul, on the head of Edmund Burke, for drawing, or rather causing him to draw, such annual shoals of idle Sassenachs, to the summit of a high mountain, in order to view Loch Awe and Ben Cruachan from the same spot where that celebrated writer contemplated the sublime prospect. To admit that brutes have REASON, would be tantamount to treason against the majesty of man. I dare not, therefore, advocate the propriety of Roanan's conduct, on this occasion. But, contrary to a celebrated political maxim, we deter- mined, in this instance, to redress the grievance, before we punished the offence. We therefore disengaged Roanan from his live lumber, and proceeded up the mountain on foot, while the irrational creature, find- ing his chief burthen taken off, returned to the task of dragging the baggage slowly after us. The atmosphere was remarkably clear, and seating ourselves on the highest part of the mountain pass, we had ample leisure to contem- plate the scene which drew from the celebrated Burke the acknow- ledgment alluded to. That acknowledgment alone proved that this great orator and writer had not gone far south, in search of the sublime that he had never gazed from the gorge of the Jura on the Pays de Vaud " That glorious valley with its lake, And Alps on Alps in clusters swelling, Mighty and pure, and fit to make The ramparts of a godhead's dwelling: " that he had never stood on the Rhigi at sunrise on the Col de Balm at noon or on Vesuvius at sunset. But even to eyes that had beheld .these gorgeous scenes, the prospect, from the place where we stood, 76 ROANAN AND BURKE ON THE SUBLIME. would appear wild and magnificent. Loch Awe lies a narrow and pro- longed watery mirror at our feet, inclosed between lofty, rude, and savage mountains, and reflecting the whole-length portrait of their monarch, BEN GRUACHAN, on its tranquil breast. At the remote north-eastern extremity of the glassy lake, the ruins of Kilchurn Castle only serve to mark, by comparison, the vast masses and altitudes of the circumjacent mountains. The whole prospect, magnificent as it is, assumes a sombre, melancholy appearance, and excites corresponding sensations in the mind of the spectator probably from the absence of those traces of man and his operations, which the vastness of the scene and, it must be owned, their own sparseness, render nearly incognizable by the senses. The solitary ferry-boat, crossing the lake from Port Sonachan to the opposite bank, was the only moving object presented to our view, and suggested the idea of Charon crossing the Styx, with a lighter cargo. But honest Roanan had now overtaken us, and his docile and sub- dued countenance clearly indicated that the load of grass and his master's stern commands were completely digested. While replenishing himself with a stock of breath on this airy eminence, Roanan still showed that he had no sense of the sublime, and that the stupendous scenery spread out before him attracted no part of his attention. But while striding down the steep defiles of the mountain towards Loch Awe, I am almost certain that he evinced classical recollection or reflection and that he repeatedly quoted, in his own peculiar language, a celebrated passage from Virgil, far more applicable to himself than to the per- sonage for whom it was intended originally : " facili.s descensus Averni, Sed revocare graduin ! Hie labor 1 " How poor Roanan may have dragged back his weary limbs over this mountain, the same day, I have not learnt ; but should these lines ever meet the eye of his portly master in Inverary, I beg for poor Roanan a holiday or two. Of this I am certain, that he never travelled with three more indulgent passengers than on this occasion ; for we walked at least three-fourths of the journey to Dalmally. In- the romantic valley of Glenorchy, we found a comfortable inn, and, what might be hardly expected, a smart post-chaise, and two good horses. During a most beautiful afternoon, we proceeded round the head of the lake, and along a pass between the foot of Ben-Cruachan and Loch Awe, which, in my humble opinion, is far superior to the more cele- brated Pass of Killecrankie. At a certain point of elevation on the road, with the romantic ruTns of Kilchurn close on our left, and foaming cataracts^rushing down the side of the mountain on our right, we have LOCH AWE BEN-CRUACHAN. 77 a very superb view of the lake, with its islands and remains of castles and convents diversifying and embellishing its polished surface. The road still winds, and ascends, till the mountain rises nearly like a wall, on one hand, while the lake is several hundred feet below us on the other, the descent to which is perfectly perpendicular, and would be frightful to look over, were it not screened by a hanging wood growing out of the rocks. At one of the most dangerous points of this pass a gentleman met us, riding on a refractory Highland pony, who, claiming the right hand of us, and turning short, with his head to the mountain and his haunches to the post-chaise, gave us such a stern-board (to use a nautical expression) as nearly sent us all smack into Loch Awe, over a tremendous precipice ! The end of the lake is by no means devoid of historical recollections and interesting associations. We find, that while a chivalrous knight errant from the valley of Glenorchy was slaying the Mussulmen in. Palestine, and intent on rebuilding Jerusalem, his more prudent wife was far better employed at home, in constructing the substantial Castle of Kilchurn, whose ruined towers now totter, in melancholy grandeur, over the placid wave of Loch Awe ! What a revolution in sentiment, since the time of Sir Colin the Cru- sader ! The descendants of those knights of Rhodes and defenders of faith, who shed their blood and squandered their treasure on foreign shores, in repressing the banners of Mahomet, are now exerting their influence to prevent the CROSS from supplanting the CRESCENT on the dome of St. Sophia, and the minarets of Byzantium ! That event will, however, take place, despite the interference of most Christian kings, and their Christian subjects. Islamism, like Judaism, Paganism, and fifty other isms, carries with it the principle of decay, and, like them, will be scattered on the winds. If Christianism be found to contain within its bosom the germ of perpetuation, instead of the seeds of dissolution, it will prove an additional proof of its divine origin. It was in this dangerous and difficult pass, that the rebel Lorn en- countered the royal Bruce, and, without the foresight, the second sight, or the after-sight of a true Highlander, permitted some of the royal troops, with Douglas at their head, to scramble up the steeps of Ben- Cruachan, and hurl destruction on his own head. In this narrow path, between precipitous rocks and a foaming river, two or three hundred men might defy an army, if they did nothing else than loosen the stones, and allow the force of gravity to 'pour down volleys of granite and porphyry on the invading foe. The river Awe, between its parent lake, and the bridge which spans it, on the road to Taynuilt, is exceedingly interesting, to the geologist as 18 PISCATORY PROPENSITIES. well as to the lover of picturesque scenery. The southern bank of the river is an uninterrupted series of precipices, six or seven hundred feet in height, overhanging a series of rapids, along which the waters of the Awe rush forward to mingle with their briny mother in Loch Etive. Few contemplative travellers can skirt the streams of Caledonia without having their attention arrested by the piscatory propensities of mankind. Phrenology is yet in its infancy; and I apprehend that Gall and Spurzheim, Coombe and Elliotson have overlooked the organ of angling, in the topography of the brain. A tour in the Highlands, or even an excursion along the banks of the Awe, would afford the phrenologist ample materials for reflection, and stimulate him to the search after another inhabited spot in the mental map. The seven - leagued boots, the uncouth doublet, the baskets, boxes, and canisters, filled with creeping and unutterable things the silence, solitude, and cat-like patience of these weeping willows, hanging pensively over the banks of purling rills or stagnant pools, form very picturesque objects in the Highland glens for the contemplative traveller. That the exercise, the animation even the dangers of the CHASE, should furnish irresistible attractions to the sportsman, is not to be wondered at; but the passion for ANGLING must be an innate propen- sity, dependent on some hitherto undiscovered organ, probably situated on the banks of one of those pretty little lakes or watering-places in the brain, which are called ventricles, aqueducts, &c., by anatomists. I hope the phrenological map of the brain will soon exhibit the thirty- fifth organ. TAYNUILT, the half-way house between Dalmally and Oban, is situ- ated in a wild and picturesque country, commanding beautiful views of Ben-Cruachan and Loch Etive. The CABARET here, is that where MacCulloch drew one of his most humorous descriptions of the economy and attendance of a Highland inn. There was no relay of horses here, but then there was plenty of salmon, whiskey, and oat-cake. Whether we had cast our shadows before us, or the innkeeper had the gift of second sight, I know not, but in twenty minutes a very tolerable dinner was on the table, notwithstanding Dr. MacCulloch's description of Highland procrastination ; so that the Dalmally horses and the Sassenach tra- vellers made a hearty repast before they started for Oban. The drive to the latter place, partly by sun, partly by moon light, was very in- teresting. The Connel Falls saluted us with a hoarse murmur as we left the ferry on our right the mouldering towers of Dunstaffnage flung their dark shadows on the water while the rocks echoed back the melancholy sounds of the breeze that whispered among the tombstones of the neighbouring chapel. PICTURESQUE PORT OF OBAN. 79 OBAN. OBAN is, on a small scale, in the WEST, what ORMUZ was, on a grand scale, in the EAST. It is the commercial and touristic.al centre of the Highlands, the Islands, and the Lowlands. A Roman poet, in giving a false description of Carthage, has given an exact portrait of Oban. " Est in secessu longo locus, insulaportum Efficit objectu laterum ; quibus omnis ab alto Frangitur, inque sinus scindit sese unda reductos. Hinc atque hinc vastse rupes. . . quorum sub vertice late jEquoratuta silent." On two days of the week, and at certain hours of the day, three steamers and a stage-coach are seen approaching the modern Ormuz, from the four cardinal points of the compass. The INVERNESS steamer, from the North, hoists its black signal on Loch Linhie that of GLAS- GOW, from the South, advances from the Crinan Canal the lazy and crazy HIGHLANDER (now the New Staffa) emerges westward from the Sound of Mull while the Inverary DILIGENCE, from the East, winds down the hill where the " Maid of Lorn" once displayed her fairy figure, and where the ruins of Dunolly Castle still impend over the wave-worn rocks*. The advent of four such important caravans produces as great a sen- sation in Oban, as the arrival of a fleet of Indiamen formerly did in St. Helena f ; and not merely sensation, but motion also. The whole of Oban is instantly roused from torpor to activity from listless ennui to fervid excitement. The innkeepers are all on the alert, while the scouts, videttes, and purveyors of the rival hotels are on active service and full pay. The skirmishing generally begins among these light troops ; but seldom with any bloodshed. It is among the baggage train that words frequently proceed to blows, and pitched battles are fought for a trunk or a band-box, which lies, of course, on the quay, or in the street, (if not rolled into the kennel, or tumbled into the water) till the contest is decided. Meanwhile the contents of the steamers men, -women, children, sheep, poultry, pigs, dogs, salmon, herrings, casks, trunks, bags, baskets, hampers, books, portfolios, maps, guns, fishing-tackle, and thousands of other articles, are in rapid transit from * It is curious that Sir Walter Scott, in two different passages, places Dunolly Castle on the banks of Loch Etive ! See Lord of the Isles, Note viii. p. 359. j- A young lady of James Town, asked an English friend, if the arrival of ihe East India ships did not make London very gay ? 80 SCENK AT OBAN. vessel to vessel from steamer to coach, and from coach to steamer, under such a conclatteration of tongues (for language is out of the question) as was never heard round the Tower of Babel or the pulpit of Irving ! The more violent the fermentation, the more rapid and complete is the subsequent amalgamation. The jarring elements, which we have seen in such commotion and oscillation, quickly find their appropriate affinities, or centripetal locations, and in a few minutes all is order and harmony in the thriving port of OBAN. The inns are crowded the shops are thronged the streets are paraded and the little mount that overlooks the quay, is now occupied with artists, eager to sketch the surrounding scenery. Seating myself among these heroes of the pencil, I was surprised and gratified to see the ruin of Lorn Castle rising on the south side of Oban Bay (on paper) so repaired and beautified (as the churchwardens would say) that I scarcely knew it the mountains of MORVEN, cleared of their mists, increased in altitude, and removed thirty miles farther from the Pole than they usually stand BEN-MORE, no longer the pride of Mull, but transferred to the mainland KERRARA, elevated into a romantic island OBAN, advanced from a fishing town to a Constanti- nople in miniature and the trap rocks, round Dunolly Castle, trans- muted into mountains of plum-pudding, where the raisins, the suet, and the paste, were as conspicuous as if seen through the solar micro- scope in Regent-street, or the oxygen gas of Bond-street. Such are the wonders of the pencil and the brush. In the course of a few hours, another scene of bustle and activity obtains. Crowds of tourists issue from the inns, descend from the hills, and collect on the quays, according to their elective attractions, or chemical affinities for Glasgow or Inverness, for Mull or Inverary. As they converged, a few hours previously, from the four winds, to the central mart or exchange of OBAN, they now diverge, like radii from a centre, in quest of new scenes and fresh sources of excitement. There is not much in Oban to attract us thither, except the facilities which it presents of going elsewhere a valuable quality, by the bye, not always possessed by Highland towns of greater pretensions. Yet the Bay of Oban is very picturesque, the town clean, the inhabitants civil, the air pure, and the accommodations good enough for the Duke of Argyle or the Marquess of Breadalbane. But Oban has been fortunate in another respect. The poet's pen has rendered it consecrated ground, and converted the arid trap-rock into classic soil. Around the mouldering ruins of Dunolly, that over- hang the briny wave, the Wizard of the North has waved his magic OBAN. 81 wand and started into existence, or conjured up from the dark womb of legendary tradition, a living drama of love and war, of maidens fair and chieftains bold, that will be rehearsed and re-enacted by Gael and Sassenach wanderer, long after the rock, on which the RUINS of LORN stand, shall have been worn into sand by the ever-boiling wave below. A modern traveller was not a little surprised to find a common High- land tinker busily employed in the construction of a kaleidescope at Oban, a few weeks after that fashionable and evanescent toy of philosophy was broached in the metropolis of the British isles. If one of the Lords of Lorn were permitted to peep out of the ruins of Dunolly, or the tombs of lona, and step into a library near the ARGYLL ARMS, in Oban, he would probably be not less astonished than puzzled, to see a large table covered with the TIMES and the COURIER, the CHRONICLE and the GLOBE, the HERALD and the SUN, the POST and the STANDARD, the LITERARY GAZETTE and the COURT JOURNAL, the ATHENAEUM and the SPECTATOR together with all the Reviews and Journals, from the QUAR- TERLY and EDINBURGH, down to the Penny LAWYER and the Halfpenny DOCTOR ! The Ronalds and the Somerlids would have some difficulty in reading these various vehicles of news, literature, and science, now circulated through the wildest glens of the Highlands and Hebrides ; but, if called on to interpret them into their native Gaelic, they would slink back into their graves, thankful that they had escaped an era of such unintelligible gibberish and barbarous jargon ! Accident detained us several days at Oban, including the Sabbath. We profited, I hope, by hearing the word of God, in temples made by human hands, and also on a neighbouring hill, where the temple was " all space," and " The altars earth, sea, skies." If the doctrines propounded in the former locality did not command our implicit assent, while those delivered on the mount were unintelligible; one thing was evident to the senses that the pastors were sincere, and anxious to instruct the congregation attentive, and eager to learn. This, in truth, appeared to be the case, from the Falls of the Clyde to the Pentland Firth from the wilds of Loch Scavig to the valleys of Perth. The house of Lorn is humbled indeed ! But it is probable that the present representative of the Somerlids is not less happy, nor less contented, than the most proud and potent Lord of the Isles, in the feudal ages. Over the romantic cot, redolent of the honeysuckle, the rose, and the sweet-brier, the mouldering tower of Dunolly sweeps its evening shade, as if to remind the descendant of the Lorns that MAN himself is but a shadow ! If the tottering KEEP of his martial fore- 82 SALtJTARlUM AT OBAN. fathers still stands a sad memorial of fallen greatness, it stands also an unquestionable proof of noble birth and high descent. Ancestral pride may excite the sneer of the philosopher, and the hatred of the vulgar ; but it very often supports the fortitude of man under the pressure of adversity, inspires courage in the hour of peril, and preserves honour in the midst of temptation. The history of mankind proves that the " pride of birth'.' is a universal, and therefore a natural feeling. The ignorant Iroquois shows it as intensely in the wilds of America, as the haughty Castilian in the valleys of Spain the cannibal of New Zealand, as unequivocally as the Norman baron or the Saxon lord. Very few despise this feeling, who are entitled to possess it ; but, whenever noble birth is attended by other than noble actions, heraldry only lights the torch that casts a lurid gleam over the funeral of departed honour ! Before quitting OBAN, I may remark that this romantic little town is likely to prove attractive on another account besides that of affording facilities for going elsewhere. It seems that the air of this place is sin- gularly salubrious, and that a physician of high respectability, and great information (Dr. Aldcorn) is here establishing a kind of SALUTARIUM, similar to that which is resorted to among the Nilgherry mountains in India, for the accommodation of such invalids as are recommended to change the air and scene, in the summer or autumnal months. I think it highly probable that this place will be found to possess some valu- able qualities conducive to the restoration of health, and the attainment of much recreation, by excursions to Staffa, Sky, lona, Glen Etive, Loch Awe, Ben-Cruachan, the Corrivrechan, and numerous other Highland and Island lions, all within reach of the PORTUS SALUTIS, or head-quar- ers at Oban. SUNDAY. As, in politics, we have Whigs, Tories, and Radicals so, in religion, we have Fanatics, Hypocrites, and Infidels. Fanatics are probably the most respectable, and the least mischievous of the three classes; be- cause they are conscientious and well-intentioned. There is a con- siderable tincture of fanaticism in Scotland especially in the Lowlands but this will, of course, be flatly denied. Mais n'importe. The SAB- BATH has lately engaged the attention of legislators, and the discussion is only beginning. The " Lord's day" the periodical holiday of youth is associated, in memory, with pleasure and relaxation with enjoy- ment and happiness, rather than with regret or repentance. Injudicious as dark is the spirit which would convert the sunshine of Sabbath into CALEDONIAN SABBATH. 83 a day of mortification and gloom the day of rejoicing into a day of penance and sadness of darkness and fear ! It has been well remarked by a talented Scotchman, that " This is not the character of our religion, nor should it be the cha- racter of our Sunday. But in this Presbyterian country, the fog and the mist, the rain and the storm, suit but too well the feelings and the character of the mental day. Yet, fortunately, this too is wearing out. In the Highlands, in particular, it is seldom seen ; and it is delightful to contemplate the cheerful faces, cheerful though sedate, and the bright dresses which, once in the week of labour and dulness, meet on the brown moor or the bleak sea-shore ; renewing the friendships and discussions of the week, then joining with gravity, but not with gloom, in the performance of their duties, and again, without levity, meeting to terminate their little politics and affairs, before they disperse to the toils of the ensuing period. If, in the Highlands, there is not the joy of an English Sunday, neither is there the mortified and affected pre- cision and solemnity of a Lowland one : nor do I know where the recur- rence of this day produces effects which we contemplate with more of heartfelt pleasure, and with less of desire to censure." MacCulloch, Vol. ii. pp. 305, 306. The attempts which are now making to render the Sabbath a periodii cal day of misery, mortification, starvation, and disgust to the myriads of our poor, will, I trust, be frustrated by the good sense of English- men though I am far from being over sanguine in this hope. ODE TO ST. ANDREW. Bills of all sorts I have read To say nought of those I've paid- But a longer Bill than thine, More perplexing line by line, Never met these eyes of mine. 'Twould do credit (I'm no railer, Andrew") to a Bond-street tailor. Saints of old were wont to cry That the passports to the sky Were Faith, Hope, and Charity ; But thy Bill of Bills, St. Andrew, Teaches us (what more can man do ?) That the passport to salvation Is Sabbatical starvation, By which, it is presumed, you mean Heaven is only for the lean ; Cheering creed, did he but know it, To each half- starved epic poet ! 62 84 CALEDONIAN SABBATH. Prime Apostle of the age Now Johanna's left the stage Born to scourge those horrid sinners Who persist in Sabbath dinners, And (what's worse) blaspheme their Maker By encouraging their baker ; Hiring sinful hacks on Sundays, Shirking Church on hot-cross-bun days, And quadrilling awful sight ! Thro' the livelong Christmas night, Methinks, old Huntington I hear Twang this summons in thy ear " Andrew, take thy tub and preach, Stick to sinners like a leech, And to make thy task completer, Share it with thy cad. Saint Peter ; Never mind tho' sceptics rail, Boys tie crackers to thy tail, Wicked Cruikshank sketch thy phiz, Pamphlets sneer or journals quiz; Thou by preaching up starvation To this stiff-neck'd generation, Preaching down all Sunday hacks, And the Atheists on their backs, Shalt in time o'ercome each scruple, And the power of cant quadruple, For John Bull's sense is, I see, Dying fast of atrophy ; Speed, then, Andrew, thine endeavour, Hallelujah ! Cant for ever !" Speed, ay speed thee, man of God, Make this land the land of Nod ; That is, set us all asleep By thy speeches, heap on heap, And thy Bill, whose every line Is a drowsy anodyne ; Speed thee on ; but hold, my lays Are too poor to hymn thy praise ; Worth like thine, so all-commanding, Passing human understanding, Can alone be filly sung In our Irving's Unknown Tongue. Without entering into the interminable discussion respecting the divine or human institution of SUNDAY, let us adopt the intermediate tenet of Archdeacon Paley. That illustrious divine comes to the con- clusion that " the assembling on the first day of the week, for the purpose of public worship and religious instruction is a law of Christi- anity, of divine origin; and that the resting, on that day, from our em- CALEDONIAN SABBATH. 85 ployments, longer than we are detained from them by an attendance upon these assemblies, is, to Christians, an ordinance of human institu- tion." Those who consider that they are bound to observe the SAB- BATH of the Jews (a people who would not interrupt the operations of the Roman army against Jerusalem on that sacred day) should lie in bed from Saturday till Monday, in order to comply strictly with the Mosaic decree that they and their servants shall do " no manner of work." We are told, however, by the divine Author of our religion, that we may lawfully drag an ox or an ass out of mire or slough, on the Sabbath day; and if so, I would argue from analogy, that we may lawfully drag, on the Lord's day, an artisan, shopkeeper, or citizen, out of the polluted atmosphere of London, by means of omnibus, .stage, or steam, to enjoy the benefit and the pleasure of the fresh air, at Hampstead, Richmond, or Blackheath. By the same divine Legislator we are authorised to " heal the sick," even on the Sabbath ; and as miracles have ceased, we may surely employ physical means for that purpose, none of which are more efficacious than removal from the scene of suffering and labour, on the only day which is free from toil. He who would take from the poor the means of transport from the crowded and unhealthy city on Sunday, while he and the rich roll about in their luxurious carriages, is a bigot, of narrow understanding, weak philanthropy, and gloomy, if not false religion, unacquainted with the wants, the wishes, and the well- being of MAN, while presumptuously legislating for his immortal soul, upon self-erected principles, or rather constructions of holy writ, calcu- lated to insure his fellow-creatures a foretaste of purgatory upon earth, as a preparatory for a heaven in another world. It appears to me that every class of society, and every individual should be allowed time and opportunity on the Sabbath day, to attend public worship, and that the remainder of the Sabbath should be unfettered by any law or regulation that prevents innocent relaxation and amusement of mind or body. Rest, religion, and recreation, seem to be the ends and objects of Sunday. In conclusion, I sincerely hope that every city, town, and village, in England, may always present, on a Sunday afternoon, the Presbyterian silence, gloom, and solitude of their Caledonian neighbours but, from a widely different cause : not from the shrinking of the inhabitants into the dark recesses of their barred and bolted prisons, with the auste- rity of monks in their cells but from the rushing forth of old and young into the pure atmosphere of the country, there to offer up the best incense to their Creator in heaven, by enjoying the blessings which he has scattered for them on earth. 86 SOUND OF MULL. SOUND OF MULL. The bay of Oban is canopied with smoke the hissing steam is sup- pressed the revolving wheels dash backward the foam and the Staffa boat, darting forward, between Kerrara and Dunolly, directs her prow towards " The mighty Sound, Where thwarting tides, with mingled roar, Part Mull's dark hills from Morven's shore." We are now in a Strait, scarcely less renowned in song or story than the far-famed Hellespont. In Aros and Ardtornish, we have Sestos and Abydos in Edith and Ronald, we have Hero and Leander. But Sir Walter committed a sad mistake, when he failed to make the Lord of the Isles swim across the Sound, while the Maid of Lorn was, by whatever impulse " led To where a turret's airy head, Slender and steep, and battled round, O'erlook'd dark Mull." If truth must be told, Lord Ronald's love was rather too cold to hazard a two hours' dip in the Hebridean Hellespont while Lady Edith ap- pears to have directed much more of her attention to a " lonely bark That oft had shifted helm and sail To win its way against the gale " to a slender skiff, in fact, (fraught with the royal Bruce and the lovely Isabel,) which was pitching, bows under, and beating against a surly north-wester, between Mull and Morven than to the ships of Ronald which, unmoored from Aros, and covered with streamers " Onward their merry courses keep Through whistling breeze and foaming deep." The scenery of the Sound of Mull is certainly grand and imposing ; but I cannot agree with the immortal Wizard of the North that, " in fine weather, a grander and more impressive scene, both from its natural beauties and associations with ancient history and tradition, can hardly be imagined." I conceive that the scenery of Loch Linhie and Loch Eil is superior. Sir Walter has certainly availed himself of his undoubted right (poeti- cal license) when he likens the tides rushing from the estuaries on each side of the Sound of Mull, to hostile armies meeting in direful conflict, while their broken spears fly into the air, during the horrid concussion TOBERMOREY. v" " With eve the ebbing currents boil'd More fierce from strait and lake ; And midway through the channel met Conflicting tides that foam and fret, And high their mingled billows jet, As spears that in the battle set. Spring upward as they break." It seems to be an established canon of poetry that, into the composi- tion of a simile, there should enter as little as possible of similitude. Homer, Virgil, Milton, and hundreds of poets, have placed this rule beyond all dispute, and therefore I shall not venture to gainsay its propriety. While passing the rock on which Ardtornish Castle once stood, and which is now a low jutting point that would not, for a moment, arrest a mariner's attention, the little HIGHLANDER (the Staffa steamer, in 1832) doffed its cap, and every part of its clanking machinery was silent as the grave. Old stockings, rope-yarns, cords, nails, and every species of materiel which the steamer could produce, were put in re- quisition to make the engine play but all in vain ! As there was a gentle breeze from the east, the sails were loosened from the yards ; half of them flowed in streamers on the winds, and the remainder were so Ao/y, as not to offer even " passive resistance" to the gentlest gale. It was very fortunate for us that a fair wind wafted us forward towards Tobermorey; for the HIGHLANDER lay a helpless logon the water, with- out engine to propel, or sails to guide us through the darksome Sound of Mull!* TOBERMOREY. As Oban is a little OMUTZ, so Tobermorey is a little OBAN. It has its little island to defend the harbour, and its two entrances for the facility of navigation. The arrival of the Staffa steamer, twice a week, is an event in the capital of Mull, and creates no trifling sensation and bustle. The principal inn soon overflows ; and, in the struggle for beds, he who is least successful is most fortunate. Our ejectment into the streets threw us into the comfortable house of Mrs. Cuthbertson, seated on an eminence, and commanding a most romantic prospect. The gentle eastern breeze did not waft us an hour too soon into Tobermorey ; for we had scarcely got housed, before a tremendous storm of " thunder, * The crazy HIGHLANDER is replaced now by the STAFFA. a new vessel, of the same size as those which navigate the Caledonian Canal. Autumn, 1833. 88 TOBERMOREY SURF SONG. lightning, and of rain," that would have done honour to the caldron of the Weird Sisters, converted the Sound into a sheet of foam ; illumi- nated, from time to time, the adjacent Alpine scenery and would have " drench'd the steeples, drown'd the clocks," of Tobermorey had there been any there to drench or drown ! In this dire conflict of the ele- ments, the opposing mountains of Mull and Morven found their tongues, echoing and re-echoing the deafening peals across the Sound, with that awful sublimity that is witnessed on Lake Leman, when Jura and the Dent de Morgle answer joyously to the crashing thunder that bursts over their summits, in the midnight tempest. BEN-MORE seemed, on this occasion, to be in one of his most noisy, as well as thirsty moods. Many a deep draught did he swallow from the teeming clouds that rolled round his lofty head and many a boisterous toast did he send across " Mull's dark Sound," to his neighbour MORVEN, after each explosion of heaven's artillery, pledging, or seeming to pledge, his old friend, in the well-known language of the mountains : " Then surely you'll be your pint stoup, And surely I'll be mine And we'll tak' a right gude waly waucht For auld lang syne." But even thirsty BEN himself was soon " brimfu'," and the copious libations from the clouds began to fall, untasted, from his lips, and roll in impetuous torrents down his rugged sides. Meantime, in despite of the elemental war that howled over their heads, a dozen of tourists gathered round the festive board, while the mountain dew circulated briskly, and hilarity prevailed till midnight. LULLABY, OR THE SURF SONG. Morpheus, like the world in general, is prodigal of his offers to those who need not his assistance but shuns the couch of the fevered brain, the grief- stricken heart, the aching head, and the distempered imagina- tion, where balmy sleep would be more precious and welcome than the gems of Golcondah ! There is a music familiar to the ears of most travellers, produced by the falling of the waves on the shingly beach, the tangled rocks, and the golden sands, exhibiting a vast variety of notes, according to the nature of the locality, and inviting to repose. To the tourist, whose limbs are tired by salutary exercise on mountain and moor, no opiate is necessary to induce the soundest sleep ; and, unfortunately, those, whose vigils are occasioned by moral ills, can rarely procure an " oblivious antidote," for the troubled mind. I won- TOBERMOREY SURF SONG. 89 der, however, that the variety of note and the somniferous powers of what may be called the wild music of the beach, has not been noticed by poets and descriptive tourists. Virgil, indeed, alludes to the plea- sures he often derived from " Fresh whispers of the southern breeze, And gentlest dashings of the calmest seas.'' But the music of the beach deserves a gamut for itself, and has, in fact, been dressed in crotchets by a jovial character, long deceased, but still remembered by old sojourners on the shores of India Mr. WYNOX. I have been lulled to repose by it on many a coast from the East and West Cliffs of Brighton, to the hoarse resounding caverns of the Pent- land Firth from the dreary shores of Labrador, to the silvery beaches of the Chiaja and Chiaveri, Avhere the notes are often as soft as Italian vespers from the boisterous roar of the Southern Atlantic, falling on the yellow sands of the Cape, to the thunders of the surf on the burning shores of the Carnatic. How often, when assailed by three of the worst miseries of a tropical life the hot land-wind, the prickly heat, and the blood-thirsty musquito have I pitched my tent, or rather my palan- quin, just above high-Avater mark on the beach of Madras shut in the weather-ports, opened the lee-scuttles, and gone to sleep, under a lullaby from three lines of breakers, curling, foaming, and dashing, with a noise like that of Niagara, along five hundred miles of coast. The spray from this tremendous surf, cools and quenches the scorching Sirocco, which rolls towards the ocean immense clouds of burning dust and sand, inimical alike to animal and vegetable life. The critical reader will probably remark that this is a pretty con- siderable digression from Tobermorey to Madras. But let him analyze the train of his own ideas, and he will find that they digress as much as this, every minute in the hour. In mental operations, TIME and DIS- TANCE go for nothing analogy and association for every thing. The mind shifts its magic scene from the Clyde to the Ganges, in the same space of time that it would flit across the narrow rivulet or ravine which separates the statue of John Knox from the venerable cathedral of Glasgow. The roar of the surge impelled by the tempest against the rugged cliffs of Mull, vibrated on some chord in the organ of memory, which instantly responded in the long-forgotten music of the surf. Let metaphysicians explain the matter better if they can. Be this as it may; the howling of the winds, the pelting of the rains, the peals of thunder, the flashes of lightning, the dashings of the waves, and the clatterings of the windows, combined to tranquillize the mind, and lull the tired traveller to profound repose. 90 TOBERMOREY BEN-MORE. The usual and the expected sequence of such a commotion of the elements did not take place ; and the morning was lowering, squally, and wet. Although the machinery of the Highlander was tinkered during the night, the weather presented no temptations for a voyage to Stafra, and I preferred an excursion to BEN-MORE, whence, in the intervals of the showers, I had a magnificent view of the Hebridean Cyclades. I saw the steamer pitching and rolling round the bluff promontory of Mull half of the passengers landing on the west side of the island and the more adventurous spirits prosecuting their voyage to Fingal's Cave. If the view from Ben-More be one of sublimity, the appearance of Mull itself is singularly dreary and barren. Though a mighty mass of trap rock, which, in other situations, might prove fertile, Mull is too much exposed to storms and rains to retain soil on its surface. The laird of the island has deserted the narrow and grey tower of his fore- fathers, and built himself a modern mansion in its vicinity. He has converted his five hundred Caterans into five thousand sheep, to the great benefit and peace of Mull. Instead of dining on salt fish and kail, like his ancestors, (except when they creached a cow from their neighbours,) the laird has settled down into a quiet " KILL-HIS-OWN- MUTTON GENTLEMAN," regaling himself on lamb and turnips, with good Ferintosh toddy. Instead of leading the clan of MacLeans to murder the clan of MacDonalds, he drives his flocks of sheep to Tober- morey, to be slaughtered by the ruthless butchers of Glasgow. It was here that the great lexicographer was asked by the haughty chief, whether he was a Johnston of Glenco, or of Ardnamurchan ? and, on being answered that the stranger was of neither clan, the laird of Mull roughly remarked that Samuel Johnson, of Lichfield, must be a bastard. The times are wonderfully changed in half a century ! The author of Rasselas and the Rambler is now as well known in the mansion of the MacLeans, as the author of Waverley and Don Roderick ! Mull is not without its miracles. Dr. MacCulIoch tells us that he saw whiskey turn into ice on the summit of Ben-More, during a hail- storm, in the month of August, 1812 ! This is pretty well. But the fol- lowing is still better, and on the same authority. When the inhabitants of Tobermorey fished up a cannon from the wreck of the Florida (one of the Spanish Armada ships that sunk in the harbour) they found an iron gun so hot that they could not continue to scrape off the rust ! " The iron guns were deeply corroded ; but, on scraping them, they became so hot that they could not be touched. It is now proved that what the Highlanders could not explain, and no one chose to believe, in 1740, is a fact. The year 1812 has demonstrated that burning hot iron may be fished up from the bottom of a deep sea." Vol. iv. p. 244. THE GOBLIN'S ODE. 91 I wish Dr. MacCulloch had been a little more particular, when he authenticates the foregoing fact, by ocular demonstration. " I will not pretend that I was more ready to believe than those I have blamed, when I accidentally met with the same appearance (burning hot iron fished up from the bottom of the sea) and was the first to discover and explain the cause." Ib. Returning to Tobermorey, I amused myself by drawing up a short catalogue of the more prominent and characteristic features of this romantic country a plan which I had often found useful in impressing images more firmly on the tablet of memory. On referring to these notes, some weeks afterwards, I was not a little astonished to find that some bogle or goblin of the mountains had made free with my pocket- book, and by docking the longer lines, and tagging on the odds and ends to the shorter sentences, had given to the whole something of the form of verse, and even something of the sound of rhyme ! To those who are sceptical as to the existence of fairies, in these northern regions, or their mischievous interference with the sober notes of Sassenach travellers, the following curious and authentic instance of transmutation of prose into poetry (if indeed the term poetry be allowed) may not prove uninterest- ing. CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTLAND, OR THE GOBLIN 5 S ODE. Land of grey rock and drifting rain, Of clamorous brook and boisterous main, Of treacherous squall and furious gale, That bend the mast or rend the sail Land of green pine and harebell blue, Of furze and fern of various hue ; Of deep ravine, and cavern hoar, Of jutting crag, and dangerous shore. Land of the pibroch and the plaid ; Land of the henchman and the raid; Land of the chieftain and the clan, Of haughty laird and vassal-man, Of Cull, of Gael, of Catheran. Land of tall cliff and lonely dell, The eagle's perch, the outlaw's cell ; Land of the brave, the fair, the good ; Land of the onslaught, foray, feud ; Land of the ptarmigan and roe ; Land where Glenlivat's fountains flow, Sparkling and bright as " Mountain dew," The heart to warm, the strength renew. 92 GOBLIN'S ODE. Land of the long, long wintry night, The dancing, streaming boreal light ; The misty morn, the brightening noon, The dewy eve, the radiant moon: Land of the sprightly reel and glee ; The wraith, the fairy, the banshee ; Land where the patriot loves to roam Far distant from his native home ; And yet, on every foreign strand, Still sighing for his native land ! Land of basaltic rock and cave, Where tempests howl and surges rave ; Where Fingal sat, and Ossian sung, While Staffa's echoing caverns rung With feats achiev'd by heroes' arms, With tragic tales, and war's alarms. With lover's vows, and lady's charms. Land of the heathery hill and moor, Of rude stone cot, and cold clay floor; Of barefoot nymph, and tartan'd boor. Land of the KIRK, austere and pure, From pope and prelacy secure, With pastor grave, and flock demure. Land of the metaphysic strife, Where mortal's lot in future life Is settled by presumptuous man, Who dares the Almighty's ways to scan ! Land of the eagle's airy nest, On Glencoe's cliffs, or Nevis' crest; Land of the lochs that winding sweep Bound mountain's base and headland steep. Land of the tottering Keep and Tower, O'er moat that frown, o'er surge that lower : Land of the thousand isles that sleep Twixt lowering cloud and murmuring deep : Land of the thousand barksthat ride O'er curling wave or confluent tide ; And, without aid of oar or sail, Urge their fleet course 'gainst tide or gale. Land of the streams and lakes that feed The myriads of the scaly breed ; Land of the pedagogue and school, Of book -worm lore, and logic rule. Land where the zealot's bosom glows With fires might melt St. Bernard's snows ; Yet, where wild sceptics disavow The laws proclaim'd on Sinai's brow, THE PIBROCH. 93 And those revealed to Israel's bands Ere scatter'd through earth's distant lands ! Land where the torrents leap from high, And o'er their rocky barriers fly- In sheets of foam, with thund'ring roar, Down through the dark ravine to pour : Land but the signal's given to weigh ; The winds and tides brook no delay. Bleak Mull, farewell ! I must away. Whether the foregoing lines embody the more prominent charac- teristic features of the interesting land through which I am travelling, and in a form which may assist the memory, by recalling strong images impressed on the sensorium, I must leave to the judgment as well as indulgence of the reader; always remembering, in charity, the trick which the goblin played me among the mountains of Morven, by trans- muting prose into rhyme. THE PIBROCH. Why are the Scotch bagpipes more deafening and dissonant than those of the Irish ? We may as well ask, why are the mountains higher, the storms louder, the rivers swifter, and the climate colder, in the one country than in the other ? Habit and early association is everything. To a Highlander, the pibroch is more melodious and exhilarating than is a Cremona to an Italian, the sackbut to a Jew, the harp to a Welshman, or the bugle to the huntsman. It incites him to love, war, or industry, according to the mood or the exigency of the moment. It prompts him to charge with the bayonet, slash with the claymore, spring forward in the dance, climb the precipitous mountain in quest of the deer, or ply the tough oar on the lake in search of her- rings. It rekindles the fire'of old friendship and old feuds ; it makes the whiskey circulate round in bumpers, to the tune of " Auld lang syne," and the dirk fly from its scabbard at the mention of a foeman's name. It soothes the recollection of past misfortunes ; it feeds the hope of better times ; and it blunts the sting of present penury. All these, and many other services, the pibroch still performs; leaving out of sight its ancient and most honourable office, (now, alas ! in abey- ance,) of " gathering the clan," when its chief determined to sweep off the herds of a neighbouring glen, cut the throats of a hostile sept, or resist the laws of a reigning sovereign. The wild and shrill notes of the pibroch are capable of expressing, perhaps of exciting, the more fierce and tumultuous emotions of the 94 STAFFA. mind, the more rapid and energetic actions of the body. These qua- lities would render it the favourite music of a rude and martial people, living in a barbarous age, and inhabiting a rugged, savage, but romantic country. To the supersensitive tympanum of an Italian ear, the loud notes of the pibroch would be as painful and horror-thrilling as the scream of the eagle to the lamb it had pounced upon in Glencoe, or the roar of the lion to the startled fawn in the forests of the Sunderbunds. STAFFA FINGAL'S HALL. " Fair StafFa ! proudly on her crystal throne She sits with marble crown and pillar'd zone, And, for the homage of obsequious slaves, Lists the rough music of the foamy waves Stern flatterers they !" Mother earth must have been in a highly architectural mood when she heaved forth from her huge basalt-foundry, or volcanic caldron, those myriads of pillars which compose, sustain, ajid surround the most majestic temple ever erected by the hand of nature ; and compared with which, the gloomy and gigantic caverns of Elephanta and Salsette, hewn out of the native rock, and dedicated to unknown gods, are puny and abortive imitations ! " Where, as to shame the temples deck'd By skill of earthly architect, Nature herself, it seem'd, would raise A minster to her Maker's praise! Not for a meaner use ascend Her columns, or her arches bend; Nor for a theme less solemn tells That mighty surge that ebbs and swells; And still, between each awful pause, From the high vault an answer draws, In varied tone, prolong'd and high, That mocks the organ's melody." It was natural for the poet to imagine this mighty cavern as a temple formed by nature; but for whose worship ? It is more appropriate to NEPTUNE than the temple whose ruins still stand in solitary grandeur amid the desolate plains of Psestum. The floor of this majestic edifice is a liquid mirror, reflecting, in calin weather, the various forms and tints of the basaltic and stalactitic vault above, putting to shame the tesselated and variegated floors of ancient Greece or modern Rome; STAFFA. 95 while, at other times, the gentle undulations that sweep along the innu- merable and multiform projecting columns, broken into various lengths, on each side, re-echoed and reverberated from the roof and walls of this stupendous edifice, produce a wild and harmonious music, corresponding with the mysterious and awful character of the place. But when the southern tempest agitates the surrounding ocean, and impels the high and impetuous surges, in rapid succession, through the yawning portal of the cavern, then the terrific encounter of billow and rock the one assailing, the other repelling the gigantic struggles of conflicting elements, imprisoned in the dark womb of Staffa, shake the whole isle to its centre, by violent concussions, and explosions resembling the loudest thunders, at the instant when the roaring wave strikes against the inmost recesses of the cavern, and, repulsed by vault and pillars, rvishes back, a defeated deluge of foam, till rallied by its successors in the reiterated assault. Perhaps on the whole surface of the earth, there is not a more sublime \ or awful sight than that of a storm at Staffa in a dark night, accom- panied by thunder, lightniiig, and rain. The war of elements above, below, and around, might well cause man to tremble, when the solid rocks beneath his feet, the whole island itself, vibrate like a pendulum, and appear in imminent danger of being swept away and buried beneath the waves ! This is no ideal, or even exaggerated picture. The wretched inhabitants were frightened from Stafl'a by the rocking of the island in the stormy wintry nights, and the groans and howlings that issued from the caves, as the surges waged their war of extermination against the tottering and fractured columns ; conveying the idea, and inducing a belief in the minds of the ignorant peasants, that evil spirits were incarcerated in the caverns, or buried beneath the foundations of the island ! - Such a scene would have afforded ample scope for the pen of a Byron ; but who would venture to paint the portentous scene that here presented itself, thousands of years before Fingal or Ossian was born-^wheh con- vulsed and struggling nature poured out, from the burning bowels of the earth, a flood of molten rock, that instantly converted the Hebridean ocean into a boiling caldron, filled the atmosphere, from Iceland to the Pillars of Hercules, with clouds of steam that, condensing, fell in cataracts over the affrighted Atlantic, and joined the opposing cliffs of Caledonia and Hibernia, by a gigantic bridge of crystallised basalt pillars, whose pedestals were planted in the earth, whose shafts were washed by divided oceans, and whose capitals shot high in the air ? " Above, around, in wild confusion hurl'd The shatter'd remnants of a former world 96 STAFFA. The broken shaft, the shelving colonnade, The deep rock rifted from its marble bed All tell of God's great vengeance, when the sky Yawn'd on the land when Heaven's whole armoury Whelm'd the wide earth." How long this 'fire-formed barrier between two boisterous seas, this volcano-born chain of connexion between two distant countries, resisted the united warfare of winds and waves, it would be fruitless to inquire. Neptune and ^Eolus may have been jealous of this encroachment on their respective domains, and they were finally victorious in their event- ful contest with Vulcan's chef-d'oeuvre, constructed with all the aid and power of earth and fire ; since nought now remains on the opposing coasts but enormous masses and countless myriads of basaltic columns, wedged into causeways, piled into cliffs, hollowed into caverns, bent into arches, and arched into temples, riveting the attention of the wanderer on some of the most stupendous phenomena that Nature ever exhibited in this often revolutionized planet. In a late and beautiful prize-poem on Staffa, by Mr. Palmer (1832), one of the most poetical ideas relates to the submarine causeway be- tween Scotland and Ireland : " Yet oft the fisher, when the waters lie All calm beneath some bright and summer sky, Bending in curious gaze his eye profane Through the clear azure of th' unruffled plain, Follows their course, and many a fathom deep, Sees their light pillar'd forms around him sweep, Bound the dark caves of ocean to explore, And join their brethren on lerne's shore." In this poem I may remark another idea, perhaps more poetical than philosophical, namely, that Fingal's cave, and the basaltic columns of which it is composed, were not the chance-medley result of some great operation of nature, but constructed by the express design of the Al- mighty. *' And what though vainly man's presumptuous sight Would pierce the gloom of unrecording niglit, Trace the deep steps of earthquake and of flame, And ask the voiceless stone from whence it came ? It was not chance it was not fortune blind, Which reared the pile, and yon proud arch designed." Now, all I have to say is this ; that it is as clear as the sun at noon- day, that the arch of Fingal's cave was made by the waves, which wore away the loosened columns beneath it; and the only apparent object of this design was to form a cover for cormorants in a storm a treat STAFFA. 97 for tourists in the Hebrides and the subject for a prize-poem at Oxford. In respect to the formation of the basaltic columns themselves, if they were expressly designed for a causeway between Antrim and Argyle- shire, the speculation has turned out to be almost as abortive as the Thames' Tunnel an argument that goes far, in my mind, to prove that these basaltic rocks were no more thrown into octagons and hexagons by any design of the Great Architect, than the nodules of flint were made spherules in the quarries of limestone near Dartford*. It is impossible to glance at the geology, or even the geography of the Western islands and Highlands, without coming to the conclusion that, cotemporaneously or consecutively with the event which we are now con- templating, some convulsion of nature severed the islands from the main split the latter into indentations that admitted the sea, and formed lochs heaved up the mountains, with deep valleys between to become lakes leaving glens and vales, of romantic beauty or wildness, to trans- mit, by countless streams, the rains to their parent source in the ocean. The approach to Staffa is not very inviting, on account of the flatness of the island ; but, on coming close to the south end, the ranges of basaltic columns rivet the attention of the traveller. The great face is formed of three distinct beds of rock, of unequal thickness, inclined towards the east at an angle of some nine or ten degrees, a circumstance which conveys the impression of a fabric tottering and ready to fall. The lowest stratum is a rude trap tufo the middle is columnar and vertical and the upper stratum or entablature is an irregular mixture of broken columns and shapeless rock. Between the Clamshell and the Great Cave, the columns bulge out, as if bending under the enor- mous weight of the massive entablature above. The most striking view of the island is at the distance of five or six hundred yards, when the * This slight stricture on the philosophy of the poem, I am sure the talented author will forgive ; since the copious quotations which I shall make, must afford the most solid proof of my admiration and respect. I flatter myself that the effusions of Mr. Palmer's muse will often be read in the lonely isle of Staffa, in consequence of the notice now taken of it. One word more on the subject of design in the formation of Fingal's cave. I think that Mr. Palmer, and the noble (though anonymous) author of lines on Staffa, appended to this section, do not take the best means of combatting SCEPTICISM by the line of argu- ment which they pursue. I acknowledge design, and evidence of the Almighty mind, in the construction of a snail's shell but not in the formation of basaltic columns in Staffa, or the excavation of Fingal's Hall. The basaltic columns were formed by the same laws of inanimate matter that cause salts to crystallize into regular forms, when we evaporate the water that kept them dissolved. The form of the cave itself was caused by the long- continued action of winds and waves on a mass of basalt. 98 STAFFA. Cormorants' Cave is just in view on the left the Boat Cave in the centre and Fingal's Hall on the extreme right. The three beds or strata are then beautifully distinct ; and it is at that moment, and in that position, Staffa exhibits the most characteristic columnar feature, and its greatest resemblance to human architecture on a gigantic scale. The view here is the most beautiful and surprising on the island that of Fingal's Hall being the most majestic and impressive. v " Bright is each jewel of the circling main, Bleak Ulva's cliffs and green lona's plain. But not bleak Ulva's promontoried steep, Nor that green isle where Lochlin's heroes sleep, Not the blue hills, in eastern distance lost, Nor the white range of Mull's retiring coast, Can breathe a charm, or move the soul like thee, FAIR STAFFA, peerless daughter of the sea * !" On landing near the Clamshell Cave, and clambering along towards Fingal's Hall, the myriads of columns scattered in every direction, some piled up in cones, some standing perpendicular, and others lying about, bent or broken, excited more astonishment in my mind than the cele- brated Cave of Fingal itself. I know not whether the thought ever rose in the minds of others, but this extraordinary scene suggested the idea of some gigantic ante-diluvian BEING having here collected or formed those stupendous masses of basaltic columns (as modern architects collect stacks of bricks) for the construction of a whole colony or community of caves and caverns, for purposes unknown to the present inhabitants of the globe. The conical, or rather conoidal mass of columns, standing out near the mouth of the great cave, and called Buachaille, or the Shepherd, appears exactly as if it had been piled up in readiness for some new edifice, or perhaps the columns excavated from Fingal's Hall, and stacked up here for some unknown structure. " Column on column piled ! projecting here ; Like some grey castle the tall rocks appear ; There, swelling on the sight, with gentle change, Slope the long vista and descending range, Till the dark surges and the curling spray Close on the secrets of their onward way f ." But we are soon roused from reveries of this kind by the difficulties, nay, the dangers we encounter, while scrambling along the wet and slippery surfaces of the pillars. Two gentlemen fell in this attempt, * Palmer. f Idem. STAFFA. 99 and one of them narrowly escaped with his life. At length we enter the great cave, and command at once a complete view of all its parts. Those who expect to find here the architectural regularity pourtrayed in the drawings and plates of travellers, and especially of Monsieur Panckoucke, will be greatly disappointed in this respect. " Le premier sentiment (says he) inspire par la rtgularite de tout ce que 1'on voit, est que 1'on entre dans un edifice faille par la main de I'komme." I do not believe that the sight of Fingal's Cave ever produced such a senti- ment in any individual ; but the sentiment having been once broached and become fashionable, every body repeated it afterwards, like parrots. Although there is a general air of straightness and parallelism in the columns which support the dome, not one of them is either straight or regular. " They never (says Dr. MacCulloch) present that geometrical air which I have just now condemned in the published views." Not- withstanding this, I cannot think that any one was ever disappointed at the first or subsequent views of Fingal's Cave and for this very reason, that it generates in the mind no idea whatever of human construction, or artificial architecture. The hand of nature is every where visible, and the mind of the spectator, overwhelmed with the majesty of the work, rises from astonishment to admiration, till it '' Looks through Nature up to Nature's God." The very circumstances enumerated by M. Panckoucke (which are, however, creatures of the imagination) would destroy the sublimity of the scene. " Cette longue voute eleve'e dans une proportion elegante, ces colonnes droites, ces angles rentrans et saillans, dont les aretes sont si pures tout vous persuade que le ciseau d* artistes habiles s'y estexerce." This is all closet delineation. Not one of the columns reaches the whole way from the base to the dome but is lost, or becomes blended with some other column in its ascent. The walls of this gigantic cavern are no where exactly parallel to each other, or regularly conti- nuous in themselves. They are always advancing or retreating some- times forming considerable niches or recesses*. The dome is exceed- ingly irregular. In some places, it is arched in some it is flat and in others, it bends downwards in the middle. All these irregularities preclude the idea of human architecture and all of them add to the * " Sur les deux cotes (says Panckoucke) s'elevent et se prolongent, en lignet par- faitement droiles, deux grand murs." I deny the fact, or rather the fiction ; and I am sorry to say, that M. Panckoucke's drawings are only a little more exaggerated, in respect to regularity, than those published by Pennant, as taken by Sir Joseph Banks. Let any one compare plate 28 of Pennant, with Fingal's Cave in the original, and he will confess that it is but a degree less exaggerated than that of Panckoucke. H 2 100 STAFFA. natural magnificence and solemnity of a temple evidently not built by mortal hands. " Nor wants there blazon'd roof or sculpturd dome O'er which the worshipper's rapt eye may roam. What though no vain device, no tinsel glare, No monument of human pride be there, The moulded rock is nobler far than they, The spangled crystal shames their flaunting ray : And that unchisel'd fret-work might not yield To gilded tracery, or to storied shield." The causeway or corridor on each side of the cave, raised several feet above the water in the middle, and formed of the ends of broken columns, is by no means easy, perhaps not quite safe, to traverse. I think it next to impossible for females to go more than half way into this cavern, without very considerable risk. It was with the greatest difficulty I penetrated to the extremity, and I was sometimes scarcely able to surmount the angles and irregularities of the path, though they are laid down in prints as regular as the stones in a trottoir. It is about mid-way, fortunately, that one of the best views of this stupendous grotto is seen ; and where the musical cadences of the swell, ranging along the thousand pillars, and ultimately dashing against the perpen- dicular rock, are heard to greatest advantage. The sea outside was like a mirror, and it was only the long ground swell that rolled, at considerable intervals, into the cavern. These intervals gave time for all the varieties of intonation and cadence to occur, and fade away on the enraptured ear, before the wild music of the grotto was renewed. " the brooding air Breathes holiness around, and whispers prayer ; The pillar'd rocks their silent voices raise, The deep sea murmurs her Creator's praise." When the swell was not rolling along, the water was so clear, and green, and tranquil, that the whole of the basaltic and stalactitic vault was reflected as from a mirror, by the glassy deep, adding greatly to the beauty of the scene. A pistol was fired off the flute was played the bugle resounded and voices were raised by the various explorers, till the whole cavern was filled with echoes and fairy notes. The following passage is so characteristic of our lively Gallic neigh- bours, that I cannot help quoting it from Panckoucke : " Vers le milieu de la grotte, mon epouse, qui apportait dans ce voyage autant de grace que de gaite, consentit a chanter un morceau des operas de Rossini. On fit silence, et dans cette uouvelle salle de con- STAFFA. 101 cert retentirent les accens inspires au cygne de Pezzaro. La voix vibrait le long des colonnes, elle devenait plus pleine et plus puissante, les roulades semblaient acquirer plus de vivacite ; enfin la religieuse majeste du lieu donnait un nouveau charme a ces chants harmonieux." It is hardly necessary to add, that all the company applauded the obliging songstress, and that " even the gods of this enchanted palace appeared to re-echo these plaudits." " Les dieux memes de ce palais enchante semblerent repeter ces applaudissemens." The meridian sun was darting his powerful rays into the entrance of Fingal's Hall ; and the intricate play of light, shadow, and reflection, produced by the broken columns retiring in ranges, gradually diminish- ing, had a powerful but pleasing effect. Looking inwards, from the portal, the causeways on each side form foregrounds, not less important than beautiful, by the inequalities and groupings of the broken columns. The columnar walls of the edifice, too, catch a variety of direct and reflected tints from the watery floor, mixed with secondary shadows, and deep, invisible recesses, producing a very picturesque effect, " Oh ! 'tis some wondrous pile of fairy birth, Born but to fade ; too beautiful for earth ! So tenderly the glittering sunbeams fall Through the deep shadows of the vaulted hall, Tracing each niche, each column gilding o'er, And streaming full upon the wave-beat floor*." The vault itself is divided by a fissure, and presents considerable variety. Towards the entrance, it is formed of irregular rock ; in the middle, it is composed of the broken ends of columns and intervening stalactites, exhibiting a kind of geometrical and ornamental character ; while, at the inner extremity, there is a composite order of columns and irregular rock. The view from the very deepest recess of this astonishing grotto, with lona in the distance, is extremely grand, and, indeed, unique. It forms the fifth plate in M.Panckoucke's magnificent work; but the regularity with which the lively Frenchman has built the columns on both sides, and arched the roof overhead, destroys not all similarity, but certainly all fidelity, in the representation. " Nor can the pencil of the artist (says MacCulloch) do aught for that poetry which seems to render the caves of Staffa fit residences for the visionary mythology of the coral caverns and waving forests of the glassy sea. The gentle twilight which for ever reposes in the recesses * Palmer's Staffa. 102 STAFFA. of Fingal's Cave, the playful and living effects of reflected light, and the liquid sound of the green water, as it rises and falls in measured intervals over its silvery floor that solitude which the mind would fain people with imaginary beings these are the business of the poet, and must be left to the poet of Nature." The Clamshell Cave, which we cross in getting to Fingal's, is com- pared to the keel and ribs of a ship, but it might just as well be com- pared to the spine and ribs of the great giant, or nondescript monster, who built the other caves, and then lay down here and died. The Boat Cave exactly resembles the gallery of a mine ; and this resemblance destroys all idea of the grandeur and sublimity connected with Fingal's Hall. Being excavated in the lower stratum of rock, its walls are destitute of all columnar ornament. The Cormorants' Cave, however, being of dimensions little inferior to the grand one, is worth visiting ; but, from the circumstance mentioned above, it is devoid of architectural ornament. Having climbed, with some difficulty, to the surface of the table- land, we wandered over the island, and approached as close as possible to the edges of those perpendicular cliffs that overhang the three prin- cipal caves. It is a scene of solitude, though not of silence. The dashing of the waves against the rocky shores, and the screaming of the sea-fowl, wheeling round the cliffs, were the only sounds that fell on the listening ear. To the eye nothing but desolation appeared, and the naked walls of a single human habitation, long since deserted, were in keeping with the whole scene. " Nor here does silence reign : the sea-mew's yell, Complaining from her airy citadel ; The hoarse, loud murmurs of the chafing waves, The sleepless echoes of a thousand caves, Swell in wild chorus ; on the realm of Fear Repose intrudes not, Calm is never near. Yet far, far distant is the busy strife, The stirring energy of human life : No peopled cities there, no galleys ride In proud dominion o'er the subject tide, Nor glade nor forest of luxuriant green Disturbs the barren grandeur of the scene. From those rude clefts no mountain flow'ret springs, No clustering shrub to those lone pillars clings, No glossy saxifrage of purple hue, No golden samphire, or the tufted yew, All, all is desolate. *" * Palmer's Staffa. STAFFA. 103 Staffa, adieu ! It has been my lot to wander over much of this earth's surface, and to see most of the great operations of Nature, as well as the works of art. Seldom has my attention been so riveted, or my imagination so excited, as while contemplating the wild scenery and the mysterious formation of this wonderful island. The following lines (published anonymously in the Metropolitan) are, I have some reason to believe, from the pen of a nobleman. As it is not improbable that this little volume may often visit Staffa, their transference to these pages will, I think, prove advantageous, both to the author and to the reader ; since, in their original repository, they could hardly expect to be often read in the Cave of Fingal. STAFFA. I've gazed on Nature in the sleeping lake, The vine-clad hill, the wildly-tangled brake I've heard her whisper in the flutt'ring trees, Sing in the brook, and murmur in the breeze, Until her quiet music to my heart Would peace, and love, and happiness impart; And every fretful feeling die away, Like lover's frowns before his loved One's lay. And then I've turned on wilder scenes, to brood, And court thee, Nature, in thy sterner mood. Helvetia's cliffs the glacier high and hoar The moaning cavern, and the cataract's roar The cloud-envelop'd mountain's tranquil pride The gloomy forest sleeping on its side- Do not such scenes of loveliness control With majesty with beauty win the soul ? Nor need the breast which glows at sights like these Thirst for the climes beyond our native seas ; Not Mont Blanc's brow, or Jungfrau piled on high, Or glacier glittering in the clear blue sky, Such solemn awe such pleasing fear impart As Staffa's isle, where Nature scoffs at Art ! There, on the bosom of the wildest sea, That longs to trespass on earth's boundary, "Neath low'ring skies, amid whose twilight grey The joyous sunbeams seem afraid to play Serenely calm, in solitary pride, A glorious pile reposes on the tide. From Ocean's depths the giant columns rise, And lift the self-born structure to the skies. Firm on its rocky base each pillar stands No chisell'd shaft, no work of mortal hands. 104 STAFFA. Ere man had ceased in savage woods to dwell Roots for his food, his drink the crystal well ; Ere yet he knew the joys of social life, And scarcely sought his fellow but in strife ; Ere cities grew, or Parian marble shone, Yon columns stood and stand while they are gone. Yet many a broken pillar strew'd around, And many a vista levell'd to the ground, Proclaim that not e'en Nature's works are free, All-conquering Time, from thy sure mastery ! Much hast thou spared, yet still the eye can trace " A thousand relics of colossal grace ; Which, mouldering hi magnificent decay, Tell of the wonders of a former day Of many a lofty palace now no more, When Staffa stretch'd her arms to Antrim's shore ; And her huge walls could other tenants vaunt Than the sad wind, or screaming cormorant ; Though now the wild wave washes over all, And sports the kraken* in the giant's hall f ! Then, mortal, blush to own the selfish grief Which prompts a murmur if thy days be brief; When Nature's brightest glories disappear, Shall thy mortality demand a tear ? Mark where the portal, yawning o'er the wave, Reveals to view the beauties of the cave : Majestic columns raise on either side The arched canopy above the tide, Which, mildly glittering with a sparry light, Shines like the spangled firmament of night. Deep to the island's heart recedes the dome, Till fade its lengthening visus in the gloom. 'Tis Nature's palace ! scorning to abide In temples less in reverence rear'd than pride ; The surge's roar more grateful to her ear, And tempest-hymn, than voice of hollow prayer ; She fled, disdainful of a Doric fane, And built her minster on th' Atlantic main. Still, as we gaze, a feeling more intense Grows with each look, and steals on every sense; * The kraken, largest of living animals, is a native, or rather is supposed to be a native, of the northern seas. t It is still ihe fond belief of many an Antrim peasant, that Staffa was united to the Giant's Causeway by a colonnade of basaltic pillars; and that the immense city was tenanted by a gigantic race, whose wondrous actions are still the theme of many an interesting legend. STAFFA. 105 The frowning arch above, the sea below, The time-cemented pillars' serried row : The sea-mews flitting from their rocky nest, Like sullen breedings from a gloomy breast The ocean wrestling with the pile in vain, That hurls its breakers back in calm disdain Blend in a scene so solemn, yet so fair, That man seems almost an intruder there ! Each hollow blast, that slowly dies away, Sounds like some spirit's melancholy lay ; And, as th' harmonious cave sends forth its song, You scarce would start to see an airy throng Of mermaids, flitting o'er th' unruffled wave, And breathing low, soft dirges through the cave ! Here, too, 'tis said, when storms convulse the day, And ruddy lightnings gild the glistening spray, Loud o'er the tempest's noisy revelry, Fingal's pale ghost shrieks out his battle-cry ! Or, when the trembling moonbeams meekly fall In timid reverence on the haunted hall, Holds sweet communion with each passing cloud, Perchance some once-loved warrior's sable shroud * ! Let Reason coldly smile ; I blame them not Who with such spirits people such a spot. There is a stillness but not of the grave A breathless life within that wondrous cave A deep contentment a mute harmony A holy presence that we cannot see, But yet can feel; for Ocean murmurs on, As if in prayer, his deep-toned orison ; And winds without, that rage in lawless diu, Are hush'd to music as they enter in. Oh ! let the sceptic, on whose doubting eyes In vain the beauties of creation rise ; Who, while he views the loveliness of earth, Can yet disown the power that gave it birth Here let him gaze, and say 'twas chance alone, That rear'd the pile and nicely carved the stone, That lent each shaft such noble symmetry- Alas ! it mocks his poor philosophy, Suggests a truth he little dreamt before Man was not made to question, but adore ! * It was one of the doctrines of the Runic mythology, that the souls of the brave who had died in battle, wandered among the heavens in light fleecy clouds, for some time after death. 106 IONA. I N A. There are few persons, of even moderate sensibility, who can pace the most humble village churchyard, without emotions and reflections of a serious, not to say, sombre cast. The possession of health and the enjoyment of youth cannot entirely veil the certainty of that fate, which, though the common and inevitable lot of all, is, nevertheless, abhorrent to each individual. Yet when we tread on the graves of the illustrious dead of the patriot, poet, and philosopher of those who have bled in their country's cause, humanized the heart, or delighted the imagination we forget, for the moment, the consideration of SELF, in gratitude or regret for those who lie beneath our feet. But feelings of a still deeper hue, thoughts of intenser interest, arise in the mind, as soon as we touch the sacred soil of lona. We land, with some difficulty, on a rugged shore, and find ourselves in the midst of ancient ruins, strewed over many a rood, on a low and lonely isle, surrounded, in the distance, by misty mountains, shattered cliffs, projecting rocks, and a boundless ocean canopied by almost perpetual clouds and fogs and buffeted on all sides by violent storms and raging tides. A locality more desolate, dreary, and isolated from the world, can hardly be imagined ; yet it was here that holy men devoted their lives, for more than a thousand years, to the preservation, exposition, and diffusion of our divine religion, while harassed and encompassed by " savage clans and roving barbarians." And not the inestimable bless- ings of Christianity alone, but the cheering lights of literature, flowed in every direction, from this sequestered rock in the ocean, to humanize the neighbouring hordes and even distant nations. It is small triumph to sceptics and scoffers that Columba and his descendants were tinctured with the superstitions of their times; and that legendary tales and miraculous interpositions became interwoven with the true, but obscure history of this venerable institution. We see here the ruins, fast mouldering to decay, of a monastery, a convent, an abbey or cathedral, many buildings serving the purposes of refectories, chapels, dwellings, &c. besides the " HOUSE APPOINTED FOR ALL LIVING" the place of sepulture ! It is not probable that any of these ruins saw the light before the twelfth century, and therefore the graveyard may fairly take precedency of them all, in point of antiquity. This part of the Holy Isle appears to have been inhabited beyond all proportion to the population of lona and no wonder, when we find that every petty king and tyrant chieftain, for hundreds of miles around, were ambitious to have their bones deposited in the sacred soil of lona, IONA. 107 doubtless with the hope that the arch-fiend might be deterred from claiming acquaintance with his quondam friends, in such a sanctuary. Little did the potentates, warriors, and mitred heads who sought sepul- ture in lona, dream of the indignities to which they were ultimately doomed ! Here the " storied urn and animated bust" have served for floors and walls to pigsties, stables, and cow-houses, during centuries and even now, when curiosity or shame has cleared away the rubbish and filth from the tombs of the mighty dead, we find the impious ham- mer and chisel at work, in daily defacing and dilapidating the rem- nants of antiquity which time and barbarians had spared. While Mr. MacLean, the CICERONE of lona, was enumerating the forty-eight Scottish kings (from Fergus the Second (Anno 504) to Macbeth) that lay entombed under our feet, an antiquary in the rear, deliberately chipped the nose off a monarch, an abbot, or a chieftain, and pitched it into his bag, for the museum at B 1. Of the legendary lore connected with this sanctuary, it is not my purpose to take much notice. St. Oran's Chapel is still standing, and his tomb is shown by the antiquarian schoolmaster of the place. His Satanic majesty having discovered that Columba was erecting a temple here not exactly dedicated to his worship, caused the walls to tumble down as fast as they were built up. Columba was advised, in a dream, to bury a living man, as a propitiation to the cloven -footed king, and St. Oran offered his sen-ices for that pious purpose. After twenty- four hours inhumation, Columba was seized with a fit of curiosity or compunction, and broke up the grave, to see how St. Oran fared. To his astonishment, he found him alive and, with horror, heard, from the lips of the victim, certain sceptical statements respecting the infernal regions and other secrets of the prison-house, which were unfit for mortal ears. As a summary mode of punishing, as well as of preventing false doctrines and heresies, Columba soldered up the coffin of his friend St. Oran, so effectually, that he never uttered a word on these subjects, afterwards. Columba may have been a very pious saint, but he appears to have been but an indifferent patriot. Disgusted with Ireland, his native land, he repaired to Oransay ; but finding that he was still in sight of the Emerald Isle, he moved on, some ten or fifteen miles farther, to lona, where he pitched his tent for good. As the large island of Islay lies between Oransay and Ireland, I should have doubted whether St. Co- lumba could see his native land from the place of his first expatriation, had I not remembered that he was the first personage endowed with the property of " SECOND SIGHT," (a fact which must be somewhat morti- fying to our Caledonian brethren,) having " told the victory of Aidan 108 IONA. over the Picts and Saxons on the very instant it happened*." Now this faculty of second sight rendered it useless for its possessor to remove from Oransay to lona ; for surely a dozen miles would not make much difference in such a supernatural power. Be this as it may, the Hiber- nian ex-patriot seems, on leaving his native shores, to have divested himself of gallantry (hereditary in the Irish character) as w r ell as love of country. So mortal a hatred had St. Columba to the fair sex, " that he detested all cattle on their account, and would not permit a cow to come within sight of his sacred walls." " Where there is a cow (says he) there must be a woman (a curious kind of logic, by the way) ; and where there is a woman there must be mischief." I confess I cannot much revere the tenets of this propagator of Christianity, twelve cen- turies ago, who excluded the fair sex from the benefit of his sermons and doctrines ; for, by his own showing, they were much in need of reformation in the year 565. The existence of a convent among these ruins, however, shows that Columba either altered his mind, or that his successors considered the fair sex as eligible tenants of this consecrated ground. It is ciirious that the exiled cows took possession of the con- vent vacated by the nuns, soon after the Reformation, as well as of cathedral, chapels, and monastery ; and continued to defile these sanc- tuaries till exorcised by the pen of Dr. Samuel Johnson ! His Britannic Majesty is head of the church, where St. Columba was once the paramount authority ; and the Rev. Mr. Campbell is his Ma- jesty's vicar, vicegerent, or minister for spiritual affairs in the Ionian Isles. He has the cure of five hundred souls ; w r hile his brother, the doctor, has the care of their bodies. The town or village consists of a line of sordid huts along the beach, and near the ancient ruins. They are all, apparently, of the same height and size, and, excepting the manse, and the kirk, the Ionian peasant " Sees no contiguous palace rear its head To shame the meanness of his humble shed.' 5 He is not, therefore, tortured with envy or jealousy. Both the minister and the doctor assured me that the inhabitants of lona are remarkably happy and contented. Their wants are few, and these are supplied by the air, the ocean, and the scanty soil of their rocky island. The chief articles of importation are a cargo of tourists, twice a week, in summer, to see the mouldering ruins of the isle their exports are little more than variegated pebbles, sold by the children at sixpence a lot and legen- * Pennant, vol. ii. p. 280 ; who expressly affirms that Columba (an Irishman) was " the first on record who had the faculty of second tight," IONA. 109 dary talcs rehearsed by Donald MacLean, the village pedagogue, mysta- gogue, and antiquary, at nearly the same rate. The whole island (which is only three miles in length) is a labyrinth of rocks, and the shores, on all sides, difficult of access. Yet here is a fine quarry of variegated marble, which might be more easily brought to England than that from the quarries of Carara but then it would not be Italian ! Along the southern shore we observed numerous masses of red granite, as round and smooth as polished marbles, though many of them are three or four feet in diameter! There is no granite on the island; and these im- mense and ponderous globes must have been rolled hither from other islands, by the waves and tides of the ocean ! This circumstance may convey some idea of the terrific force of the storms, and the tumultuous agitations of the waters, among these Northern Cyclades ! It may also convince every unprejudiced mind that the excavations of Staffa, Skye, and other places, were the products of wintry storms and raging tides, rather than original formations. The sacred black stones of lona, on which great oaths (no doubt includ- ing coronation ones) were taken, never to be broken till convenient are all gone. " What the peculiar power of this talisman was, in giving a conscience to him who was well aware that he had none of his own, is neither related nor to be guessed." But, in all countries, and among all classes, the devil, who is the father of oaths, has furnished a formula for each, adapted to the manners and habits of the swearers. Of the three hundred and sixty crosses that once stood on lona, only two or three remain, and they are tottering, like the tower and walls of the abbey itself ! The synod of Argyll ordered sixty of them to be thrown into the sea ! So then we have had reformers in all ages of crosses as well as rotten boroughs. The synod of Argyll may find precedents in mobs as well as in monarchies. The early Christians destroyed pagan temples and if the synod burnt the library of lona, there was a much larger library burnt on the banks of the Nile by cer- tain Moslem REFORMERS. There is doubtless an organ of REFORMA- TIVENESS in the human brain, though the phrenologists have not yet given it a local habitation or a name. The Egyptians reformed or de- formed the Hindoos the Greeks the Egyptians. The Romans demo- lished Etruria, and were reformed, in turn, by pope and pagan. The ancient noblesse of France were reformed by the sans-culottes the sans- culottes by the sabre-men the Bourbons by the Orleans. The miracles with which the biographers of Columba have adorned the saint, appear sufficiently ridiculous to modern ears. A halo of light encircled his head when at the altar he could turn water into wine conversed with angels and exorcised the devil out of a milk- 110 DUNST AFFNAGE. pail. He contrived a spit which caught deer and other game, of itself, when fixed in the woods. " Yet (says a writer who bears no great respect for antiquity) when divested of that which belongs to the piety and credulity of the age, we imagine that we can discover the features of a character truly apostolic a fervent and unwearied piety, united to an industry in pursuing his mission that knew no repose and to an undaunted courage, which the condition of the ferocious and lawless people whom he attempted to convert, rendered indispensable." His religious labours were not limited to Scotland and Ireland. Northum- berland became the scene of the pious toils of monks from lona. Many of the religious establishments of England were, for centuries, provided with teachers or monks from this remote spot. These monks un- dertook voyages to the surrounding islands and Norwegian seas, for the purpose of propagating the Gospel. lona was, in short, the PALESTINE of the North the ROME of Ireland and Scotland*. But the steamer has now made several gyrations along the shore, and sounded the signal for embarkation, before we could tear ourselves from the ruins of lona. The sun was declining in the western horizon the towering mountains of Mull were purple with his rays the breakers were roaring over many a sunken and projecting rock the sea fowl's mournful scream re-echoed along the steep and rugged cliffs of Mull but no trace of man or animal was seen in any direction. A more dreary, desolate, or dangerous coast can scarcely be found or ima- gined. Instead of returning by Tobermorey and the Sound of Mull, we swept our course along the southern shore of the island, among sunken and projecting rocks against which the breakers were furiously foaming. No steamer should take this route, except in very clear weather. Pas- sengers are anxious to return to Oban this way, because it is nearer, and saves a night at Tobermorey. But they are unacquainted with the dangers of this navigation. DUNSTAFFNAGE. Ruins, in some countries, indicate prosperity, in others, decay. In Egypt, Greece, and Italy, they record the decline and fall of great em- pires in England, Scotland, and Wales, they mark abolition of feudal * Is it not remarkable that Boswell, that worst of Ciceroni, did not take the great lexicographer to Staffa, when he was here within ten miles of the greatest curiosity in the Hebrides ? DUNSTAFFNAGE. Ill tyranny, the establishment of popular freedom, and the consolidation of national strength. The lawless power formerly dispersed among petty chiefs is now concentrated in the legal magistrate. The elegant villa has succeeded to the frowning castle where the wild deer roamed, the corn now r waves the sound of the hammer has drowned the war-cry of the henchman. In surveying the remains of Highland castles, one is at some loss to conjecture the use for which they were designed. They could have had no accommodations for the luxuries of peace they possessed slender defence against the assaults of war. There is no moat or drawbridge no barbican or tower to defend the gate no loop-hole through which to annoy the assailants. Excepting the naked and scarped rock, on the diminutive island, just large enough for the castle or tower, there was nothing to prevent the enemy from undermining the foundation of the wall ; or setting fire to the door, and walking into the stronghold. In fact, Sir Walter Scott has given an instance of this kind of storming a chieftain's citadel, in one of his novels. From the narrow and rude square tower, of two or three stories, up to the royal residence of DUNSTAFFNAGE, there is little appearance of there ever having been COMFORT in these gloomy mansions of the great or even STRENGTH. There is no indication of the walls having ever been plastered and a siege or blockade must have been out of the question, since these fortifi- cations rarely possess a well to slake the thirst of the besieged. They seem to have been constructed rather as defences against wolves or wild boars, than as castles to resist the attacks of armed men. No doubt, however, they answered all the military purposes for which there was any need ; and as for luxury or pomp these were articles in which the Highland chieftains had little dealings. To those who have surveyed the remains of antiquity in England, Wales, and on the Con- tinent, the dwarfish scale of the Highland castles appears very striking. The walls of Kenilworth would, I think, contain the whole of the Cale- donian castles, north of the Clyde. Still their ruins add greatly to the interest of the landscape. Indeed the most romantic country in the world soon tires the eye, where the ruins and records of man do not mingle with the scenery, and excite historical reflections. Switzerland and Italy present remarkable contrasts in this respect. The eye is delighted, for a season, in the former ; but the mind finds more per- manent objects of contemplation in the latter. Scotland combines both kinds of interest. Her romantic mountains and glens feast the organs of vision the historical records and legendary tales of her ruins, streams, and vales, afford ample provision for the intellectual repast. The situation of Dunstaffnage is far from interesting, being a low 211 DUNSTAFFNAGE. tongue of land ; but it commands many fine views over Loch Finnhie and Loch Etive. We wandered round the walls of this ancient palace of Scotch monarchs, where a single brass gun is planted, by way of keeping up some claim to regal power. We penetrated into some of the state apartments, at the risk of falling through the floors into masses of rubbish below. A single family occupies a nook of the quadrangle and a miserable abode it is ! Recesses in the walls, with stinking straw, instead of fragrant heather, form the wretched beds on which its shiver- ing inmates recline. It must, in honesty, be confessed, that one of our objects in visiting Dunstaffnage, was to see the place where the " fatal stone," on which the Scottish kings were crowned, so long enjoyed its royal prerogatives. Our curiosity may be pardoned, when it is considered that this same stone formed Jacob's pillow, when he slept on the plains of Luz, as is proved by the inscription of our English Edward, who bore off this trophy from the banks of Loch Finnhie : " Si quid habent veri velchronica cana fidesve, Clauditur hac cathedra nobilis ille Lapis, Ad caput cximius JACOB quondam patriarcha Quein posuit," &c. From Syria, this hard but proud pillow was brought to Egypt from Egypt to Spain from Spain to Ireland, by Simon Brek, who was crowned on it, seven hundred years before the birth of Christ. On it the kings of Ireland were enthroned, and there it had the singular pro- perty of emitting sounds indicative of the propriety of the election a convincing proof (if proof was wanted) that the BALLOT will never ensure secrecy, since the very stones can speak on such occasions ! It was destined that, wherever this stone might be placed, a Scot should reign. FERGUS the First, therefore, brought it with him to Scotland, three hundred years before the Christian era, and there it maintained its talismanic character, giving heavenly sanction to the kings of Cale- donia, till " king Edward Longshanks" forcibly removed it to West- minster, where it may now be seen for the trifling sum of eighteen pence. The ancient prophecy was completely fulfilled at the time of the UNION, by the coronation of James the Sixth, and tended very much, no doubt, to reconcile the Scotch to that happy event. " Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocunque locatum Invenient lapiiiem, regnare tuenlur ibidem." Were it not for the supernatural powers and properties of JACOB'S pillow, which every Cockney will surely run to see in Westminster Abbey, it was hardly necessary for Scottish kings to send to the Emerald DUNSTAFFNAGE. 113 Isle for stones, which was very like " carrying coals to Newcastle." At the period when this coronation ceremony was in vogue perhaps till a much later period I imagine it would have been difficult for an aspir- ant to the crown of Scotland, to find any thing else than a stone to be crowned upon at least in the Western Highlands. Even now the vicinity of Dunstaffnage presents abundant materials for the manufac- ture of Jacob's pillows. Indeed some niineralogical wits (if wit and mineralogy be ever found in conjunction) have hinted that the sacred stone in Westminster Abbey is nothing more than a piece of the iden- tical rock on which the old castle of Dunstaffnage is built ! Be this as it may, I think Fergus the First would have proved a benefactor to both countries, if he had brought over a cargo of the mercurial imagination of the Irish, to mix with and enliven the grave judgment and calculating wisdom of the Scotch, since the tertium quid thence resulting would have formed an amalgam, capable of being moulded into models of man, that might bear comparison with that headstrong animal, John Bull, whose body and soul are an olla podrida of all races, European, Asiatic, Australian, and Carribbean. The sulky urchin who guarded this dreary ruin positively refused us admittance, because it was the Sabbath. There was no great difficulty in forcing the door, but the angry janitor followed us with savage frowns through the mouldering apartments that still exist. When we began to scale the wall that separates the ruins of Dunstaff- nage from the roofless mausoleum of its quondam royal tenants, the young dragon growled, in an unknown tongue, with most menacing gestures, as if we were going to disturb the ashes of the mighty dead. We disturbed nothing but a covey of partridges. There is little to de- tain the stranger in this lonely and melancholy scene : no " storied urn or animated bust" no " long-drawn aisle or fretted vault" no- thing, in fact, but tottering walls of a chapel and cemetery inclosing " long flat stones, With nettles skirted and with moss o'ergrown." We hastened from the spot, but not too soon. Jet-black clouds were rising portentous in the north-west, zig-zagged, occasionally, with bril- liant scintillations of electric fire, and ominously advancing in direct opposition to the wind. We had not, indeed, got half a mile from DunstafTnage, when a storm " of thunder, lightning, and of rain," that would have gladdened the hearts of the Weird Sisters, came pouring down from the mountains of Morven, as if invoked by the goblin guar- dian of the castle, to hurl vengeance on the heads of the Sassenachs who had trodden, with profane step, on the sanctuary of departed kings ! We quickly took shelter in a wretched-looking hut, built of rude 1 14 DUNSTAFFNAGE HOSPITALITY OF THE stones, and thatched with heather. We found the interior much more comfortable than we expected. A good peat fire was blazing on the hearth, over which was suspended a pot of broth ; while around tire chimney hung more than a dozen of well-smoked salmon and other fish. A female, and six staring, rather than smiling children, made instant accommodations for the Sassenachs, including two ladies. Pewter and wooden platters were soon rattling on the clean deal table, and the ladle was baling out the broth, in the twinkling of an eye, for the drenched strangers. Delight was pictured in every countenance of the Highland group, as well as of the guests ; and never did I spend so happy a half hour beneath the sculptured domes of the great, as under the hos- pitable roof of this Highland hut ! There was no interchange of ideas through the medium of that language which was conferred on man to conceal his thoughts ; but through that language of nature, which is expressed in the eye, and needs not the chattering, false, and obsequious tongue, to give utterance to the feelings of the heart. The poor family could not speak a word of English, nor we of Erse, to manifest the plea- sure of the hostess and the gratitude of her guests yet every thing went on in harmony and good nature ! The storm subsided the clouds cleared away and the sun shone forth in splendour. Half a crown put into the hand of a young bare- footed girl turned pleasure into pain. The poor mother was evidently in extreme distress for language and means to show her sense of the gift to her child. After several ochs ! ohs ! and exclamations unintelligible to us, a long knife was brandished at the throat of an enormous salmon in the chimney, which, in half a minute more, would have been broiling on the fire for us, had I not seized the hand of our kind hostess, and made her understand that we were amply supplied with provender from the broth-pot for the remainder of our journey. I mention the above little incident, of which I could recount many parallel instances, where I found that the " march of intellect" and the selfishness of refinement had not yet affected the springs of ancient Highland hospitality. I shall probably be believed when I say that I could have had ample introductions to the better classes of society in Scotland ; but many will doubt my wisdom, in not taking a single letter of recommendation to the land of cakes. These certificates are great taxes on the gentry of all countries, and I have made a point of never availing myself of them, ex- cept in cases of necessity, and where money could not command accom- modation at that hospitable mansion AN INN. He who wishes to see as much as possible in the shortest space of time, will not intrude on the domestic circle, or take up his abode for a week or two with each of his KING-SEU.ING AND KING-KILLING. 115 friends. Pennant, MacCulloch, and fifty other Scottish tourists would have given us better delineations of man and the earth which he inhabits, had they worked harder and eaten less. Had they paid for every thing they put into their mouths, the public would have had better and cheaper articles comina; out of that reservoir. KING-SELLING. The Scotch have been satirized, beyond measure, for the mean or the mercenary act of selling one of their kings and that for the sum of FOURPENCE. Yet, on an impartial review of their crowned heads, from Kenneth downwards, leaving aside the interminable list of UNUTTER- ABLES, presented to the Pope by Robert Bruce, and tracing a long line of regal ancestors up to Pharaoh, king of Egypt we must confess that, even of those who were crowned at Scone, or on the Irish Stone, not a few could be singled out, who would not have fetched a groat had they been put up to auction in any of the most legitimate monarchies of Europe. But those who cast reproaches on Scotland, should recol- lect that, if she, sold one king, she bought three, two of them the dearest bargains that ever crossed the Tweed. For one, (David the Second), the Scotch nation paid one hundred thousand marks in gold, and that for the " dishonorable tool of England," whose " life was a uniform contrast to the patriotic devotion of his father " THE BRUCE. For the other, (William the First,) Scotland paid the heaviest penalty and the dearest ransom that a nation ever paid for a prince, forfeiture of independence ! As for James the First, that vigorous monarch levied such a capitation tax on the Scotch aristocracy, in Stirling Castle and elsewhere, as Caledonia had never before experienced ! Still, as the king's motto appears to have been " Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos," his ransom of forty thousand marks was not extravagant, considering the expense of his education. However this may be, the English and French should be the last people in the world to taunt the Scotch with selling their king. It was infinitely better to make a penny by a sale than by a scaffold, and far more -consonant with those ideas of pru- dential economy that are early instilled into a Scotchman's mind. It is true that in Scotland, as in other countries, kings have come to un- timely ends. They, like too many of their subjects, have /alien by the assassin's blow. But, of all murders, the legal murder is the most terrible, on account of the long and torturous note of preparation that precedes it, and the revolting mocker)' of justice which sanctions it. i 2 116 THE ENCHANTED VALLEY. Yet Scotland had, on one occasion at least, some excuse for regicide, had she been inclined that way. Few palaces have presented the frightful scene of a noble guest stabbed to the heart, after dinner, by the royal host who invited him to his table, and shared with him in the banquet. Even here, the murder of Douglas was not without provocation, though certainly without excuse, and the tenor of James the Second's life showed, that probably a gust of passion, when flushed with wine, led to the horrible breach of pledged faith, of kingly honour, of common hospitality, and of God's commands, rather than premedita- tion on the part of the royal perpetrator. It must be conceded to Scotland, that she never concurred in the murder of that Charles whom she delivered up ; and that she took more energetic steps to prevent an English parliament from beheading its own king, than to prevent an English queen from beheading a queen of Scots ! GLEN ETIVE ; OR THE ENCHANTED VALLEY. It has been very well observed by a modern and highly-gifted travel- ler in the Highlands, that the exaggerated descriptions which we find in some books of tours, deprive the spectator not only of his anticipated pleasures, but of those which the scene itself would have afforded, had the colouring been natural. No one has experienced these disappoint- ments more frequently than myself; so that I have long learnt to dis- trust the glowing descriptions of many travellers. Such writers appear to be seized with a fit of the STUPENDOUS, the moment they see a cliff or a cataract, a high mountain or a rugged rock ; and labour to excite vivid sensations in the minds of their readers, although they probably felt none at the time themselves. With them, bogs are always bottom- less rivers impassable seas running mountains high rocks tottering cascades thundering bridges trembling under the feet of passengers, while the mountains are impending over their heads. The road always lies on the brink of a fathomless precipice, where one false step must precipitate the traveller a thousand feet into the yawning gulf below. Caverns are gloomy and dangerous the clouds involve them in dark- ness visible and night falls on them with all its horrors. Such, or nearly similar, are the reflections of Dr. MacCulloch, and with which he ushers in the description of a place, such as human eye never before saw. It is quite clear that the worthy doctor would take good care not to exaggerate, after the philippic in which he has indulged against the exaggerations of others. The statements then are, no doubt, THE ENCHANTED VALLEY. 117 the naked truth. But to put the reader out of suspense. A few hours' row or sail from Bun awe, up Loch Etive, will bring the tourist to the Enchanted Valley, commonly called GLEN ETIVE. In this valley, we are informed by the doctor, " there is that sense of eternal silence and repose, as if in this spot creation had for ever slept. The billows that are seen whitening the shores, are inaudible, the cascade foams down the declivity unheard, the clouds are hurried along the tops of moun- tains, before the blast, but no sound of the storm reaches the ear. I wandered from my companions, and thought that I had proceeded but a few yards ; yet the boat was a cockle-shell, and the men were invi- sible. The sun slione bright, yet even the sun seemed not to shine. It was as if it never penetrated to the spot since the beginning of time." Vol. ii. p. 152. Burning with impatience to see a place where the laws of Nature appeared to be reversed or annulled, and where man, at the distance of a few yards, was not merely without shadow, but without substance, I sailed up Loch Etive ; but the first experiment convinced me that the sly doctor had hoaxed me completely. I landed on the bank opposite Ben-Cruachan, and paced two hundred and fifty yards in a direct line from my fellow traveller. I then turned round, with a palpitating heart : I saw him as large as life and the very dog at his feet was as plainly visible as if he had been by my side ! I looked up to the sky, and the sun was shining splendidly in the south-west : I looked down on the ground, and my shadow was distinctly painted there, in a north- easterly direction. A smart breeze swept over the surface of the lake, and the waves were heard plashing on the shore. I cast my eye towards Ben Cruachan, and I heard the rivulets murmuring down their rocky beds ! Oh, Dr. MacCulloch, how you will laugh at the success of your waggery when you read this ! If, indeed, I had previously reflected for a moment on the doctor's representation, I might have been a little puzzled how the " eternal silence and repose" of Glen Etive should have prevented the billows from being heard while dashing against the shores, or the cascades from being audible while tumbling over the precipices. When the judge, in other parts of the world, wishes to hear distinctly the words of a wit- ness, he commands silence in the court ! But things are different in the enchanted valley of Glen Etive ! I am free to coiifess, however, that there is a gigantic simplicity about the whole scene, which is very impressive. No ornament intrudes on that solitary vastness that surrounds us. The rocks and bays on the shore are swallowed up in the enormous dimensions of the circumjacent mountains. Clifl's of grey granite, mixed pastures of a subdued brown, 118 APP1N. rise all around, from the water's edge to the misty summits of Cruachan and Buachaille. The unapprehended distance lends to those sober tints an atmospheric hue, which brings the entire landscape to a tone of sobriety and repose. All around, water, rock, hill, and sky, is one broad mass of peace and silence. I wandered several miles along the margin of the lake, (by a newly constructed bridle-road,) contemplating the solemn and solitary scene, while the boatmen enjoyed a nap in a narrow creek, without seeing a human being, or distinguishing a human habitation. The weather was fine; but before I got back to the boat, the winds roared, the torrents fell, the clouds swept rapidly over Ben-Cruachan, and two or three heavy peals of thunder reverberated from mountain to mountain, as if the foundations of the hills were tearing up by the roots. None but those who are acquainted with Alpine climates and scenery, can form an idea of the suddenness with which the whole face of nature is changed in such localities. The ebb tide and the western gale were contending for mastery ; and in the strife between these elements, our little cockle-shell boat was nearly foundered. I was glad to get back to Bunawe ; though the old Charon, or ferryman there, is an exorbitant Jew. But he is beneath notice. APPIN TO BALLAHULISH. There is not a more picturesque or interesting tract of road in the Highlands than that which lies between Dunstaffnage and Ballahulish. First, we have the Connal ferry to pass ; and as the boat is generally on the side opposite to that which we approach, we have plenty of time to contemplate that stupendous " MARINE CASCADE," as it is called in the Guide-Books, the Niagara of the North, where Loch Etive, in its daily visits to Loch Linhie, falls five ivhole feet, in the space of half a mile or so ; and, about the middle of ebb-tide, makes some noise, and shows a rippling surface. Such a magnificent scene could not escape the excited imaginations of poetical tourists and exaggerating road-book manufacturers. At length old Charon hears or sees some of the many signals made, and drags his lazy boat to the bank ; when a tedious train of operations ensue, before the Highland horses are coaxed, thrashed, and ultimately pushed into the vessel ! From the Connal to the Shian ferry, a distance of only five or six miles, we have all the materials for rich descriptions all the elements of splendid scenery. We have mountains, lakes, woods, rocks, castles, sea, ships, cultivation, &c., all strangely intermixed and blended ; to which may be added, (for AFPIN TO BALLAHULISH. 119 the sake of geologists and antiquaries,) extinct volcanos, vitrified forts, and departed cities. The view from ARDMUCHNISH HOUSE, is likened, by MacCulloch, to that from the Acropolis at Athens as far as the Doctor could judge from the panorama of the Grecian metropolis, exhi- bited in the Strand. I have seen both prospects in the original; and, excepting the placidity of the Mediterranean sea, the blueness of the eky, the almost tropical verdure of the vegetable world, and the white- ness of the human habitations and religious structures, I would say that the Appin landscape is superior to the Athenian. Here the antiquarian will be delighted to learn that the ruins of the ancient capital of the Highlands, Berigonium, may be traced at least in tradition. The very names of the streets, built three centuries be- fore the Christian era, are known, and wooden pipes, for conveying water to the, city, have been discovered, proving that the ancient Highlanders were far more advanced in certain domestic comforts, than the modern Athenians, till very lately, were ! It is clear that the climate must have changed very much about Appin since the flourishing days of Btrigonium ; for, if pipes were at all wanted, it would now be for the purpose of carrying away the water that falls so abundantly from the skies in this part of Great Britain ! To doubt the existence of a High- land capital in this place, would be a great offence to Highlanders, and a great drawback on antiquarian curiosity and pleasure. Therefore I pass on, a true believer. " Credo, quia non possibile." The drive from Appin to Ballahulish, on the banks of Loch Leven, (not Queen Mary's,) along the edge of Loch Linhie, is one of the most picturesque, as I said before, in all the Highlands. The ruins of STALKER CASTLE, on the left of the road, arrest our attention. It is little more than a small square tower, and yet it is nearly as large as the islet on which it is built. I cannot conceive the reason of selecting such a spot for a castle, when so many beautiful and romantic emi- nences are scattered around, in every direction. A cliff or a mount would surely have afforded the chief and his family better air, and a more cheerful prospect, as well as greater security against assault, since the islet is not thirty yards from the main. The water could be of little use, for it is salt, and fit for neither drinking nor washing. " De gus- tibus nil disputandum." The road to Ballahulish displays a lively and moving picture of boats and various vessels gliding to and fro, on Loch Linhie, to the left; while, on our right, rises a rude and magnificent scene of mountain boundary, covered with woods, and diversified by rocks and torrents by cliffs and glens and by picturesque recesses among the hills. Over Ballahulish rises the high mountain of BEN-NA-BEAR, which is of easy 120 CEMETERY OK GLENCO. ascent, and commands very magnificent prospects, which every tourist should survey, if the weather be favourable. The ascent is easy, though somewhat tedious. The banks of LOCH LEVEN are represented, by an excellent judge of scenery, as well worthy the attention of the tourist. The weather was unpropitious for investigation, and therefore I have nothing to say on the subject. The following remarks on a bury ing-ground in an island of Loch Leven, are so applicable to places of sepulture generally in the Highlands, that I shall make no apology for the short quotation. " St. Mungo's Island is an interesting spot, no less on account of the various views which it affords, than because of its burying-ground, crowded with grave-stones and ornaments, and with sculptures which, in a place so remote and unexpected, attract an attention that more splendid works would scarcely command in the midst of civilization. There is an impressive effect also, a check, and an awe, produced by thus suddenly meeting with the emblems of mortality in these wild and secluded spots : a feeling well known to those who have thus, in their wanderings among the Highlands, unwarily fallen upon these reposi- tories of the dead. The English churchyard is habitual to our sight, nor is it ever unexpected ; proclaiming itself from afar, by its spire or its church, by its walled enclosure or its ancient elms. We pass it coldly ; and if we look at its monumental stones, it is seldom but to amuse ourselves with their barbarous emblems, or the absurdities of their mortuary verse. But in this country, in the midst of the beauties and sublimities of the fairest nature, when, rejoicing in the bright suns of an Alpine summer, in all the loveliness that surrounds us, we are suddenly and unexpectedly recalled to the thoughts of that hour when these glorious scenes shall be to us as to those who are sleeping at our feet, then it is that we feel the full force of the narrow green mound, the rude letters, and the silent stone, which seem to say, the time is at hand when thou too shalt see these bright lakes and blue hills no more*." The cemetery in question is that of GLENCO ; and he must be of insensible heart, who can contemplate it without experiencing poignant and painful emotions, on recalling to mind the massacre perpetrated in the once populous, but now deserted valley of that name ! * MacCulloch, vol. i. p. 312. VALLEY OK GLENCO. 121 GLENCO. There is no valley or spot in the Highlands that can make much pretension to the sublimity of Alpine scenery or solitude, except Glenco. The cliffs, crags, and steeps that rise in rude and barren majesty, some two thousand feet, on each side of this narrow valley or ravine, appear like the gigantic ribs of some huge earth-born monster, from which time and tempest had long swept away every thing but the solid granite bones. The scenic phenomena produced by dense vapoury clouds, or rather fogs, floating slowly over a lofty ridge of serrated rocks, fractured and worn into all kinds of shapes, are among the most extraordinary that can be presented to the wondering eye. They are seen to advantage in the middle regions of the Alps above the boundary of vegetation, but below that of glacier and snow namely, in the sombre zone of desolation and naked rock. They appeared in as great perfection, in the valley of Glenco, as in the vicinity of Chamouni. A particular condition of atmosphere is necessary for their production. The clouds must be low, and the breeze must be light. The scene is incapable of being represented by the most skilful pencil, since its cha- racteristic feature is incessant change. The painter might as well attempt to fix and embody in one picture, the intermingling mutations of a magic lantern, as the fluctuating forms of this MOUNTAIN MIRAGE.^ It would have afforded excellent materials for the descriptive powers of a Byron or a Radclifle ; but they either never witnessed it, or forgot to notice it. Standing on the banks of the Cona, we behold, on each side, an ex- pansive veil of vapour, a curtain of white cloud, rising to a great height in the air, or blending with the dense and gloomy atmosphere overhead. The veil or curtain appears to be motionless at first ; but presently one or several dark spots are seen to stud the surface of the snowy drapery. They darken and enlarge, till they assume something of form or shape; but not like any thing into which even the fancy could convert them, as objects hitherto known. In this stage, the whole diorama is sometimes suddenly or slowly veiled from our sight, and the scene is again to be renewed. But more frequently another and more striking metamor- phosis takes place. The shadowy forms of things unknown begin to take on, not only definite shapes of their own, but the outlines of almost every thing which a retentive memory can recall, or the most fertile imagination invent. At one moment, we have before us, in the air, a gloomy castle, or a frowning fortress, with moats nd mounds, towers 122 VALLEY OF GLENCO. and keeps, battlements and banners. But a slight difference in the depth or density of the vapoury medium, through which the objects loom, will give rise to the most singular optical illusions. The castle or fort changes into a mouldering ruin, a lofty ship under all sail, a huge pyramid, or a magnificent temple. Suddenly a breeze of wind sweeps along the valley the figures become all confused by the rolling of the vapours the curtain draws up, and we find ourselves in a narrow valley, by the side of a small stream, and surrounded by wild, barren, and fractured precipices ! Every one has witnessed the similitudes and metamorphoses presented by ranges of fantastic clouds along the western horizon, on a summer's evening. The mirage of the mountain exhibits somewhat similar illu- sions ; but they are of a wilder and more imposing nature. The silence and the solitude of Glenco, where no voice of living creature is heard where no figure or habitation of man or animal is seen, (save the eagle soaring in the air,) add greatly to the effect of the scene, and excite ruminations in the mind of the most thoughtless traveller. Glenco is the reported birth-place of Ossian ; and no place could have been better calculated for calling forth those sublime, sombre, and me- lancholy effusions of the imagination, which predominate in his poems. Scepticism is the bane of fancy as welt as of happiness ! I am sure that Ossian was born here lived here wrote his battles here and drew most of his metaphors, similes, and gorgeous scenery and machi- nery of his poetry from the MIRAGE of his native mountains. Would that all the battles and murders of Glenco had been as bloodless as those of the bard ! In the annals of crime and the history of mankind (which are nearly synonymous) there is not a more revolting example of infamy and cruelty than this sequestered and romantic valley has put on deathless record ! Even in these degenerate days, we can scarcely credit the astound- ing and tragic fact, that the hero of our " glorious revolution" should have signed and countersigned the worse than edict of Nantes an order for the massacre of a whole clan, after its chief had submitted, and when the cottagers were reposing peaceably on the faith of royal security and honour ! The infamous Campbell entered this lonely dell, under the pretence of levying arrears of hearth-money averred, on his honour, that he came as a FRIEND partook of the hospitable fare of his destined victim, for fifteen days parted, one evening, from his host, with pro- fessions of enthusiastic friendship and then, mustering his myrmi- dons, (who could hardly be brought to the horrid deed,) murdered man, woman, and child in the middle of the night ! If many escaped, under cover of darkness, it was not from any mercy in the assassins, VALLEY OF GLENCO. 123 but from inability to slaughter all against whom their daggers were pointed ! It is true that William, Prince of Orange, and King of Eng- land, pretended that he signed this murderous death-warrant, without noting its import ; but he took good care not to punish the authors of it ! Talk of Punic faith the treacheries of Jugurtha or the cruelties of Marius ! History does not furnish us with any thing more atrocious than the massacre of Glenco. One clan may have suffocated another in a cavern, under the influence of mortal hatred, and goaded on by the orders of feudal and ferocious chieftains; but that a great monarch should have ordered, under the sign manual, such a massacre and that a subject, and that subject a Scotchman, should artfully and deliberately execute it, upon his own countrymen, exceeds all belief, and would almost lead the misanthrope to conclude that MAN was not created by GOD, but by SATAN, and had no claim to a future state of existence or at least of happiness ! Let us hope, however, that he is destined to a future state of rewards and punishments and that the murdered inha- bitants of Glenco will, one day, rise as witnesses against WILLIAM and his agents, at a tribunal where power, rank, and riches will plead in vain ! We are informed by Colonel Stewart, in his Sketches of the High- lands, that the belief that punishment for cruelty, oppression, or mis- conduct, in an individual, descended as a curse on his children, to the third and fourth generation, was not confined to the common people. All ranks Avere influenced by this belief. The late Colonel Campbell, of Glen Lyon, retained this creed during a thirty -years' intercourse with the world, as an officer in the 42d' regiment. He was grandson of the laird of Glen Lyon, who commanded the military, at the Massacre of Glenco. In the year 1771, he was ordered to superintend the execution of a soldier condemned to death by the sentence of a court-martial. A reprieve in the mean time arrived, with an order that the , ceremony should proceed till the very moment of execution, when it was directed to supersede the fatal order to fire. The Colonel gave strict orders to the men not to fire till he pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket as the signal. When all was prepared, and the clergyman had per- formed the last sacred rites of religion, the Colonel pulled the reprieve from his pocket but with it the white handkerchief at the sight of which, twenty bullets pierced the heart of the reprieved victim ! ! The paper dropped from the Colonel's hand, and striking his forehead, he exclaimed in unutterable agony " The curse of God and of Glenco is here!" He instantly retired from the service, and wept over this unfor- tunate accident, till the day of his death ! 124 BLACK MOOR. BLACK MOOR. After a substantial repast on game and whiskey, we started from the King's House for Tyndrum, over an immense morass, a thousand feet above the level of the ocean, and sixteen or eighteen miles in diameter, bounded by mountains, some far distant, some just behind us, round Glenco. A tolerable road lay under our feet; but a silent, solitary, waveless ocean of black bog stretched away in every direction. No living creature, but ourselves, seemed to exist on this sombre chaos. Not even the mountain bee was on the wing, to give life to the scene, nay, the very midges seemed to have deserted the Black Moor. No sound of murmuring rill fell on the attentive ear ; the stagnant pool slept among the muddy sedges and the melancholy rushes of the bogs. The storm, which ushered us through Glenco, had subsided into a calm ; so that the stillness of the solitude was undisturbed by a single zephyr, while the dreariness of the scene was exaggerated by its very extent. No sheep, cow, or colt was visible in any direction. The eagle shunned it ; and even the crows seemed to have wheeled their croaking flight to regions where some crawling creatures existed for their prey. The dark and wide-spreading roots of trees, perhaps antediluvian, washed bare by the rains, reminded us, indeed, that the Black Moor was once a huge forest, and, no doubt, tenanted by myriads of wild animals, affording ample provender and sport for man, if lie was then an inhabitant of this northern region ; but whether these mighty woods were swept away by the Deluge, or since destroyed by fire, it would be idle to conjecture. The very sound of our own voices, of the carriage wheels, and of the horses' feet, was startling, so deep and dead was the silence of this naked desert. While steering our solitary course across this expanded moor, we were thrown into the greatest astonishment at the sight of an immense wooden house, twice the size of one of our largest travelling caravans, built on the road itself, and appearing to leave no room for a passage on either side ! Conjecture was now busy, whether this was a menagerie for the exhibition or ^he collection of wild animals in the Highlands ; and the balance was preponderating in favour of the latter supposition, when suddenly the great ark opened one of its sides, and disgorged a~ score or more of armed men ; and in a minute afterwards, we saw a dozen of weapons brandishing in the air, and apparently battering, with brutal force, some unfortunate object, perhaps a traveller, prostrated on BLACK MOOR. 125 the road ! The idea of the Trojan horse rushed on my mind, and I could not help involuntarily repeating the line, " Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." The young postilion, whom we had brought from Oban, and who had never crossed the Black Moor before, could give us no information respecting the astounding phenomenon within half a mile of us. We therefore halted to reconnoitre; but still, as the work of batter)', if not bloodshed, went on, we became convinced that no human being could be the victim of such long and multiplied assaults in the open clay. We ^herefore pushed forward; and lo ! the huge caravan, the Trojan horse, was found to contain neither a collection of wild beasts, nor an ambuscade of armed Greeks, but a colony of HIGH-WAY- MEV, now dignified with the title of MACADAMIZERS, warring only against granite making, mending, and moving along, the road over the Black Moor, at the rate of a mile a month ! He who is longing for the sweets of retirement, and the advantages of solitude, while loathing the turmoil of society, should pitch his tent between the King's House and Tyndrum. It is not the mere absence of human beings, however, that constitutes solitude. A man may live and die a thousand miles from any of his species, and yet hardly ever think. Every living thing, in the animal and vegetable world, affords an exercise for some of the senses, and relief from reflection ; but, on the sands of Arabia and the moors of Rannoch, a man will soon think, if it were only how to get away from them. We got safe to TYNDRUM, one of the highest and wildest inhabited spots of the Highlands and we had comfortable lodgings and ample provender, at an inn which has been falsely represented as one of the worst in Donald's land. There is something base and ungrateful in speaking ill of the roof under which we take shelter from the storm and where, at a trifling expense, we command all the comforts that the house or the country affords. It is unreasonable to expect that, during a night at Ballahulish or Tyndrum, we can have all the luxuries of a " Six Weeks at Long's," in Bond-street. But, even in the worst High- land inn, there is enough of the necessaries, and some of the superflui- ties of life, whatever the Cockney or fastidious traveller may say to the contrary. And if these necessaries or superfluities were far more scanty than they are, the good nature, and the anxiety of the host and hostess to accommodate the stranger, ought to satisfy the mind of every sojourner of sense in these comparatively unfrequented routes. 126 TYNDRUM TO KIT LIN. TYNDRUM TO KILLIN. In no country through which I have travelled, have I met with so many HIGH-WAY ROBBERS (in an equal space) as hetween Tyndrum and Dunkeld. We had scarcely left the former place, when we were stopped, in broad day-light, and robhed on the king's high-way. This happened several times afterwards, in the course of two days. There is a chain of foot-pads along this road, who evidently act in concerf. They do not despoil a traveller of all his property at once, (unless his purse be very low,) but each leaves a portion for his next neighbour. It may be a consolation to some travellers, that they are robbed " according to law," and that they will not be murdered. They may, however, be detained among the mountains, as in Calabria, if they have not money or friends to purchase their liberty. God bless the Duke of Argyle ! That nobleman has abolished TURN- PIKES throughout his wide dominions, though his Grace keeps up excellent roads. Not so a neighbouring potentate the MARQUESS of BREADALBANE. His Lordship is evidently a stanch supporter of ST. ANDREW ; for he has not only prohibited whiskey on his estates, but discourages travelling on the " Lord's day " and, indeed, on every day in the week, by imposing a heavy tribute on the tourist, in the shape of toll-bars. Now, methinks that his lordship, to be consistent, should not allow his agents " to profane the Sabbath, by receiving tolls on the Lord's day " since the receiver of stolen goods is held equally culpable with the thief who purloins them. In short, the Marquess of Breadalbane levies as many fines on travellers between Tyndrum and Kenmore, as FRA DIAVOLO ever did between Terracina and MOLA m GAETA ! The tyrant of the Apennines, however, did not prohibit ROSOGLIO ; while the Highland chieftain deprives us of the consolation which a drop of GLENLIVAT would administer to the tired and thirsty traveller, while crossing his territories. It may be urged, and with some justice, that a Highland turnpike is like a summer theatre closed in winter and, consequently, that his Lordship of Breadalbane, or his trustees, should "make hay while the sim shines," a period of no very long duration in these northern regions ! It is clear that his Grace of Argyle has acted differently ; but every man has a right to " do as he likes with his own." It is probable, however, that it would be Aviser policy, and more practical economy, in the Marquess of Breadalbane, to offer facilities to tourists, rather than difficulties, whilst traversing his wide domains. The books of Killin and Kenmore would not then TYNDRUM TO KILI.1N. 127 contain so many protests of travellers against the multiplicity of turn- pikes and paucity of whiskey on the banks of Loch Tay ! By the way, this prohibition of whiskey by the Earl of Breadalbane, while his lordship allows travellers to get drunk as often as they please with wine or ale, is a curioiis kind of morality ! Has his lordship's taste changed with time ? Does generous Burgundy please his lord- ship's palate better than " mountain dew?" I cannot, for a moment, think that the Marquess of Breadalbane belongs to that class of saints, who " Compound for sins they are inclined to, By damning those they have no mind to." The drive from Tyndrum to Killin is by no means tame, or entirely devoid of historical recollections. It was in this tract that THE BRUCE was hunted by blood-hounds, by some of his base and bloodthirsty clansmen, and where he exhibited those traits of heroism, fortitude, and sagacity, which astonish the modern reader, excite his sympathy, and call forth his indignation ! The scenery, too, was set off to advantage, rather than disfigured, by the state of the weather. We had constant alternations or successions of showers and sunshine squalls and calms dense clouds and azure skies rains and rainbows heat and cold and all that variety of cli- mate, which affords such ample themes for declamation and discontent to the foreign visitor, as well as to the native resident in these unfortu- nate isles. Yet, of all the climates under which I have sojourned, between Tristan d'Acunha, in the south, and Baffin's Bay, in the north, commend me to that which lies between Shakspeare's Cliff and the Pentland Frith. It is with climate as with most other things in this life there is nothing so pleasant, nothing so salutary, as VARIETY. Let those who doubt this postulate, go and live between the tropics, where the sun rises and sets at six o'clock, where the length of the day scarcely varies from January to June, from June to January where the glorious orb of light hardly ever veils his scorching spit-fire face, or hides his burning blushes, during ten hours of the day, and ten months of the year and where, during the other two months, we only escape the flames, by being immersed in cataracts from the clouds, encircled with sheets of lightning, or blown about, like chaff, by the furious tornado ! It is in these torrid regions that the soul of man dies within him, from the monotony of his existence ! while his vitals are burnt to a cinder, baked into ague-cakes, or swelled out into monstrous and morbid growths, by the intolerable heat of the climate ! From the Equator, let us fly to the Pole. There we have one day 128 TYNDRUM TO KIL1.1N. and one night in the year, pretty considerable lengthy ones, certainly ! During the six-month day, the sun circles round the horizon every twenty-four hours, it is true; but as his motions are imperceptible, monotony is equally the order of the day, as in equatorial climes. As for the other six months of the year, whatever the poet may say as to the felicity of the Laplanders, during their " Long nighls of revelry and ease," while burrowed in the earth, or buried in snow, I envy them not their semestral hibernations. Perhaps Captain Ross will show the beauties and the pleasures of a polar night in the Arctic regions. But then, say the British malcontents, we have the vernal gales, the balmy zephyrs, the cloudless skies, the moonlight, star-bright nights of fair Italy, as contrasts to the gloomy fogs, rains, and storms of Albion. True : with the trifling exceptions of the freezing tramontane, the suf- focating scirocco, and the poisonous malaria, which sap the springs of life, curtail the range of existence, and double the ratio of mortality on the classic soil of the Romans, as compared with that of Britons *. From a somewhat extensive acquaintance with various countries, I have, long ago, come to the conclusion that the climate of England, after all, combines the greater number of qualities that conduce to health and happiness. The bills of mortality prove the superior longevity of the English ; and it is very improbable that health and longevity can be fairly dissociated from happiness. But is there nothing but the physical enjoyment of the senses to be looked to, as connected with climate ? is the morale not to be taken into consideration ? Is it to be inferred that, because we cannot sit the livelong day, and great part of the night, in the open and balmy air, we are therefore deprived of much enjoyment ? The clouds, the rains, the storms, that drive the English into their houses and confine them there, produce, indirectly, moral habits that are rarely found in other coun- tries, blessed, as is the phrase, with more genial skies. In many of those highly favoured countries, the pleasures of a cheerful fireside in a stormy winter-night, are unknown ; together with the profitable intel- lectual commerce which thence results. * The ratio of annual mortality in Italy, as compared with England, is just about double. See the note under the head " EAST TARBET." KILLIN. 129 KILLIN. This is one of the Lions of the Highlands a royal African, if we may trust the taste (and who can doubt it ?) of MacCulloch. " If (says he, in a letter to Sir Walter Scott) you know KILLIN, you know that it is the most extraordinary collection of extraordinary scenery in Scotland, unlike every thing else in the country, and perhaps on earth, and a perfect picture-gallery in itself; since you cannot move three yards without meeting a new landscape." When I read these lines, I made a mark with my pencil, indicative of " disappointment" And, sure enough, in the very next page, we find the talented geologist in conver- sation with a traveller, who told the doctor that he had come out of his way to see this said Killin ; but that " he never saw an uglier place in his life." I have seen a thousand uglier places, however, in my pere- grinations round this globe and some much handsomer. KILLIN is by no means uninteresting ; and the reason why it did not come quite up to the picture which MacCulloch gives of it, may be partly dis- covered in the following sentence of the doctor himself. " To find out the beautiful landscapes of Killin, (says he,) it is necessary to pry about into corners, like a cat." As cats see best in the dark, and as I had not this happy faculty of the cat tribe, there is no doubt that I lost many beautiful prospects about Killin, by not spending the night there. I passed several hours, however, of a beautiful day at Killin and I was much gratified. If there be river gods in the Highlands, (and I see no reason to the contrary,) they have the roughest beds and the hardest bolsters that ever divinities reposed on in this, or in any other world. His godship of the DOCHART has had a cruel fate, and an untimely end. For more than half a mile before he finds his quietus in Loch Tay, he is tossed and ivhambled down a series of cataracts, and over ten thousand frag- ments of rock, of all shapes and sizes, from those of a paving-stone in the street, to those of the Druid's Circle at Stonehenge ! Had the Roman bard been banished to the banks of Loch Tay, instead of the shores of the Euxine, we should probably have had an additional fable in the Metamorphoses. He would have told us in smooth verse, that, in some dreadful Titanian combat between the giants of these wild mountains, Ben-Lawers had his skull fractured, and a portion of his granite brains beaten out, and hurled down into Glen Dochart there to assist in forming cataracts, for the benefit of pictorial tourists in after ages. K 130 KILLIN. The blue waters of Loch Dochart do not pay the " debt of nature," and sink into the grave of Loch Tay, without a violent and agonizing struggle. They chafe, and fret, and roar, till, in one last and convul- sive pang, which is echoed from the surrounding hills, they are precipi- tated, in a winding-sheet of foam, into the tomb of the placid lake. From the picturesque bridge nearest to the village, and which spans one of the cataracts, we have a varied and romantic view of hill and dale, pine woods and corn-fields, rock and river, lake and meadow- grounds, torrents and water-mills, peaceful cottages, comfortable inns, and towering mountains. I was standing on this bridge, eyeing the splendid and variegated scene around me, when a Highlander, with his mull in one hand, and cap in the other, invited me to visit the burial ground of the MacNabs. It is situated on a small islet, close to the bridge, with the roaring stream rushing past it on both sides. Small as is the space which it occupies, and which man requires for his last home, it is much larger than many of the island dots on which the Highland chiefs pitched their feudal castles. If the manes of the MacNabs can be consoled by the hoarse music of their native streams, chafing against rude rocks, they could not have selected a better spot. The strains are louder (credat Judaeus !) than those of the pibroch and far more harmonious. The last of the MacNabs, who fell in the battle of Waterloo, amid the roar of artillery, and to whom a monument is here erected, may still, perhaps, fancy, in the long and dreary dream of his everlasting slum- bers, that he hears, in the resounding torrent, the thunder of the cannon, and the shout, of victory, which faded on his ear in the moment of death ! Siste, viator ! Behold that minute speck of ground, which now affords ample habitation for twenty generations of a warlike tribe ! The stream of time, like the torrent that rolls under your feet, never, for an instant, suspends its course, till it wrecks you, in " shadows, clouds, and dark- ness," on that shore of oblivion, whence traveller never yet returned ! What do these rocks, and tomljs, and torrents teach ? Not, I ima- gine, to spend half cf life in the contemplation of death not to court mortification in this state of existence, as a preparation for another not to spurn, but to enjoy every gift of Nature, according to the dictates of reason and the laws of God. " Garpe diem," w r hich signifies, " make the most of the present moment " may not be the most scriptural maxim ; but I apprehend that it is one which is pretty generally acted on, even in this land of sanctity. It was beautifully illustrated here in KILLIN, by one of the most sleek-faced, Presbyterian innkeepers that I have met between Ayr -KILLIN TO KENMORE. 131 and Inverness. The influx, efflux, and reflux of travellers, at this " picture gallery " of MacCulloch, occasioned a most plentiful scarcity of post-horses on the road; and my first inquiry at the head inn, was to ascertain if I could have a pair of these locomotives, or, as they are designated in London, " MACHINERS," to convey us to Kenmore. The answer was sedately affirmative, and from the lips of a man who would have dignified a pulpit, by the candour, benevolence, and signature of sincerity impressed on his countenance. I was perfectly satisfied with his physiognomy, and had no opportunity of examining " mine host " craniologically. After two or three hours spent in " prying about like a cat," to see the lions of Killin, I began to reproach myself with the cruelty of keeping the machiners waiting so long for us at the inn. Thither, therefore, we repaired, and found that one of the locomotives had to be caught in the mountains when caught, that he was to be shod and when shod, that he was dead lame ! In the interim, my sanctified host had kindly allowed two excellent horses belonging to his neighbour, Mr. Allen, of Kenmore, to go back without any fare purely, I am certain, from a benevolent desire not to impose a double task on the " dumb creatures " of his friend at Taymouth. Another mark of mine host's consideration was evinced in my presence. An Irish baronet was on his way to a shooting cottage in the neighbour- hood ; but, as the road lay over a shoulder of Ben Lawers, Master Boni- face, or Holy-face, urged the Hibernian, in strong terms, to put four horses, instead of two, to the Noah's ark which contained his materiel for sporting and fishing. The baronet was very unwilling to employ this auxiliary force, and applied to me for advice. Knowing the nature of a Highland cross-road over a steep mountain, I was soft enough to second the recommendation of mine host for which I richly deserved the recompense that followed. The lame horse, that was probably de- signed for the rich baronet, had not arrived from the mountain, and therefore we had an opportunity of " prying about like cats," for another hour, before our post-chaise was ready. We started, at last, with the limping machiner ; and many a time did we halt to survey the beauties of Loch Tay, during the first five miles of the journey. At length the poor animal became utterly in- capable of putting the near hind-foot to the ground and I learnt, to my astonishment, that it was affected with " a lumbar abscess," for the cure of which, it had been turned into the mountains, for " change of air," about a month previously! As we had a light open carriage, with very little luggage, I strenuously advised the postilion to give the poor animal another month's relaxation on the banks of the lake, and proceed slowly with the other horse. But this counsel was rejected, K 2 132 KILLIN TO KENMORE. especially as we saw a white mare tethered near some straggling cot- tages, on the road-side. The postilion dismounted and whistled whistled again and again till at length a Highlander appeared, followed by several others, and at last, a whole posse comitatus of men, women, and children. A scene ensued, which would have afforded Wilkie most ample scope for his pencil. It was an exquisite specimen of a High- land PALAVER. It did not last quite so long as the Congress of Vienna, or the Belgi-Batavian conference ; but it was carried on with so much vociferation, and protracted to so late an hour in the day, that we. fully expected to sleep on the mountains that night. The natural politeness of the Highlanders at length prevailed, especially as there were ladies in the question, and the white mare was ultimately buckled to the black horse, while the limping animal was tethered (though that seemed needless) to the stake in the field. The mare had evidently under- stood the nature of the protracted negotiation, being familiar with the language, and seemed determined to add her mite to the difficulties of the final adjustment,- since she was destined to be the greatest sufferer. She first bolted forwards then sideways and at last made a violent effort to retrograde, by wheeling round, in order to regain the field she had lost ! In this she very nearly succeeded ; and was on the point of hurling us over a precipice into the Tay, when half a dozen sturdy Highlanders surrounded her, and compelled the unruly animal, by kicks, blows, and Gaelic imprecations, to proceed for Kenmore. I am perfectly certain that the altercation was not founded on the question of assistance to the strangers, in this case or, in parliamentary language, on the principle of the bill; but on certain details, of a pecuniary nature, which we could not comprehend. The conduct of the Highland cottagers was as hospitable, as that of the Killin landlord was impolitic not to say avaricious. He grasped at a paltry fare he lost, in all probability, a valuable horse ! Every Scotchman iinder- stands Latin for every Scot has a good education. Let Boniface, or Holy-face, of Killin, remember, that although " Carpe diem " is a celebrated expression, " Perdidi diem " is still more so ! The one was uttered by a poet the other by a philosopher. If the journey along the romantic banks of Loch Tay was chequered by the foregoing incident, it was not overclouded or embittered. The drive is exceedingly beautiful Ben Lawers towering on our left, and Loch Tay, like a mirror, lying far beneath us on the right. The beauty of the scenery, however, did not prevent a train of reflections from intruding on the mind; and on opening a volume of Sir Walter's that happened to be in the carriage, I stumbled on the following portrait of the Scottish character, as drawn by the Wizard of the North. SCOTCH CHARACTER. 133 SCOTT'S CHARACTER OF A SCOT. " Discretion, prudence, and foresight, are their leading qualities ; these are only modified by a narrow-spirited, but yet ardent patriotism, which forms, as it Avere, the outmost of the eccentric bulwarks with which a Scotchman fortifies himself against all the attacks of a generous philanthropical principle. Surmount this mound, you find an inner and still dearer barrier the love of his province, his village, or, most probably, his clan. Storm this second obstacle, you have a third his attachment to his own family his father, mother, sons, daughters, uncles, aunts, and cousins, to the ninth generation. It is within these limits that a Scotchman's social affection expands itself, never reach- ing those which are outermost, till all means of discharging itself in the interior circles have been exhausted. It is within these circles that his heart throbs, each pulsation being fainter and fainter, till, beyond the widest boundary, it is almost unfelt. And, what is worst of all, could you surmount all these concentric outworks, you have an inner citadel, deeper, higher, and more efficient than them all a Scotchman's love for himself." The above character may appear somewhat exaggerated or severe, though drawn by a Scot ; for, although put into the mouth of Rash- leigh, a great villain, yet it evidently conveys the sentiments of Sir Walter himself. Rashleigh is allowed to be well acquainted with Scotland, and far from being an enemy to Scotchmen. If we critically examine the portrait here drawn, we shall probably come to the conclusion, that in those points where it differs from the portrait of an English or Irish man, the balance is in favour of the Scot. The latter is accused of strong selfishness ; yet this same selfishness is the first and the strongest passion implanted by the great Creator, not only in the human breast, but in that of every animated creature on earth. The first law of nature is, " eat, or be eaten." If the stronger animals did not devour the weaker, the latter would devour them. If man did not destroy or eat all other animals, they would eradicate him from the soil, and still continue to prey on one another. Selfish- ness, therefore, is the instinct which preserves the individual the bond which holds together the members of a family, a clan, or a whole country. If the Scotchman's selfishness be narrowly scrutinized, it will be found to differ in no other respect from the selfishness of his neigh- bours, the English and Irish, than in being more intimately combined with, or rather composed of, industry, prudence, and economy. A Scotchman knows the difficulty of acquiring property, and is INDUS- 134 SCOTCH CHARACTER. TRIOUS : he knows the value of it, when acquired, and he is PRUDENT in the management of it : he sees how often and how easily it is squandered, and he is ECONOMICAL. The concentric circles are ingeniously drawn round the Scotchman, as barriers to confine any wide dissemination of his charity or benevo- lence. But surely it must be granted that, if our bounty bursts the first barrier of self, it should be expended on our nearest relatives then on the more distant and lastly on our clan or country. Whenever this mode of distribution is disturbed or reversed, the law of nature is infringed, and evil is the result. But Sir Walter Scott has omitted one of the most striking traits of Caledonian character, in his brief but graphic delineation of it. It is not the parsimony, but the partiality not the tenacity with which a Scotchman clings to his pelf, but the innate desire, the inflexible deter- mination which he evinces, on all occasions, to further the interest of his countrymen when it does not trench on his own. This partiality or prejudice, whichever we may call it, leads a Scotchman sometimes to be rather unjust, although his moral sense of right and wrong, on other points, be remarkably keen. Thus, if he have a place of trust or emolument in his gift on the banks of the Ganges or the Delaware, and there are three candidates for the office an Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotch- man, he will give the preference to the latter, although the claims or merits of the other two may preponderate. Sir Walter Scott himself would not have denied that this is PARTIALITY but it is a partiality or prejudice (perhaps good policy) which is born with him ; or, if not, is imbibed with his mother's milk, and is as much a part of his moral character, as a high cheek-bone or a hairy leg is a part of his physical organization. It is as innate and hereditary as his physiognomy ; and will not be obliterated by amalgamation with his neighbours of the south and west, till long after his language and features are undistin- guishable from theirs. The Killin innkeeper exhibited a remarkable illustration of the inner and stronger fortification by which a Scotchman is surrounded the love of SELF. The interest of his neighbour of Kenmore could not be thought of, while there was any chance of furthering his own. The lame mare was dragged from the mountain, rather than the return horses of Mr. Allen should have a job ! It is true that the Killin Boni- face overshot the mark. He ruined his own horse, in his anxiety to grasp fifteen or twenty shillings ! But, after all, in what does the Scotchman differ from his neigh- bours, east or west, north or south? In nothing, except that his entrenchments are deeper, his stockades more bristly, and his lines of defence better manned, than those of other people. KENMORE TO DUNKELD. DUNKELD. Bidding adieu to the noble mansion (" a church built on the top of a castle") and elegant grounds of the King of the HIGHLANDS (Marquess of Breadalbane) and the hater of " mountain dew" (two strange qua- lities united in one personage) , we wind through Strath-Tay, considered, and perhaps with justice, the most beautiful and romantic valley in Scot- land. The Falls of Aberfeldy, pronounced by Pennant to be " an epitome of every thing that can be admired in waterfalls," was only deficient in one item WATER ! The weather being hot, it had all, or nearly all run away to bathe in the Tay. Still we had many good things left. " The hoary cliffs are crown'd \vi' flowers White o'er the linn the burnie pours, And, rising, weets wi' misty showers The birks of Aberfeldy." A modern author, of great weight, avers that this fall, though a nar- row stream, gives life to the surrounding landscape. By this he does not mean the bustle and the noise, and the roaring, which are the ordi- nary sources of attraction to the vulgar ; but " a more delicate prin- ciple of life, which may exist without foam and without sound, with little perceptible motion, and without producing either surprise or amazement." The following is a more tangible explanation of this " life" of a waterfall without noise or motion: "The rays of the sun do not penetrate it, but every object is illuminated by a general sub- dued light, and by the reflections proceeding from the water, and rever- berated from rock to rock. Under these lights are seen all the rich browns of the dripping stones, the deep black chasms and fissures, the broad grey faces of the rocks, the brilliant golden mosses that cushion every projection, and the light airy green of the ferns, and of the tender foliage of a thousand shrubs, feathering from above ; while aloft, the trees throw their branches across, tinging with green the transmitted light, and adding to that general effect of tranquillity, which distin- guishes this cascade from every other." The drive from Kenmore to Dunkeld (a distance of twenty-six miles) presents some of the finest views in Scotland. A clear river winds through a well-wooded and cultivated country, with a lofty mountain boundary, and containing all the elements of picturesque scenery, with the giant BEN-LAWERS always presiding over the whole. The geolo- gical, and even the philosophic traveller will feel interest in knowing that all the lower part of STRATH TAY was once a lake. There are flat alluvial terraces, as well as other marks on each side of the Strath, that 136 DUNKELD. prove the water to have heen once, at least, one hundred feet higher than the present surface of the river, and consequently that, at the narrow pass of Dunkeld, there was once a magnificent cascade, where, at present, stands a handsome bridge over a placid river. We are now in Dunkeld the most beautiful spot that I have seen in Scotland. But as I am no adept at description, I shall here introduce some passages from a work which is too little known to Southron readers, and even to Scotchmen themselves, for reasons into which I shall not enter. " There are few places, of which the effect is so striking as Dunkeld, when first seen on emerging from the Pass of Birnam ; nor does it owe this more to the suddenness of the view, and to its contrast with the long preceding blank, than to its own intrinsic beauty ; to its magnifi- cent bridge, and its cathedral, nestling among its dark woody hills, to its noble river, and to its brilliant profusion of rich ornament. But it is seen in far greater perfection, in approaching from the Cupar road, pre- senting, at the same time, many distinct and perfect landscapes pro- duced by the variations of the foregrounds. To the artist, indeed, these views of Dunkeld are preferable to all which the place affords ; because, while they form many well- composed pictures, they are tractable sub- jects, a circumstance which is here rare, owing to the want of sufficient variety, and to that incessant repetition of trees, from the foreground even to the farthest distance, which often renders the whole a con- fused and adhering mass of unvaried wood. With many changes, arising from the winding of the road, from the trees by which it is skirted, from the broken and irregular ground, and from the differ- ences of elevation for the point of sight, all of them producing fore- grounds unusually rich and constantly changing, the leading object in this magnificent landscape is the noble bridge striding high above the Tay, here a wide, tranquil, and majestic stream. The cathedral, seen above it, relieved by the dark woods on which it is embosomed, and the town, with its congregated and grey houses, add to the general mass of architecture, and thus enhance its effect in the landscape. Beyond rise the round and rich swelling woods that skirt the river, stretching away in a long vista to the foot of Craig Vinean, which, with all its forests of fir, rises, a broad shadowy mass, against the sky. The varied outline of Craig-y-barns, one continuous range of darkly-wooded hill, now swelling to the light, and again subsiding in deep shadowy recesses, forms the remainder of this splendid distance, the middle grounds on each hand being the no less rich and ornamented boundaries of the river, relieving, by their spaces of open green meadow and hill, the continuous wood of the distances ; while the trees which, in profusion DUNKELD. and in every mode of disposition, are scattered and grouped about the margin of the river and high up the hills, advance, till they blend with- out breach or interruption of character, with the equally rich fore- grounds." " There are scarcely any two walks which do not differ in their character and in the objects which they afford ; and indeed, so far from dispensing with any, numerous as they are, we could even wish to add more. Nor is there one which does not, almost at every step, present new objects or new sights, whether near or remote, so that the attention never flags, and, what is the strongest test of merit, in nature as in art, after years of intimacy, and days spent in succession in these grounds, they are always interesting and always new." " I know no place where it is so necessary to abandon this system of measuring all beauty by its capacity for painting, to forget all the jargou of the picturesque gentlemen, the cant of the Prices, and the Gilpins, and others of this sect. Few are aware how much is overlooked by persons of this class, how much natural beauty is wasted on those who have adopted this system, and even on those who, without any system, have accustomed themselves to form every thing into distinct land- scapes, and to be solely on the watch for subjects of painting." " It is easy here to see, that the very circumstances which render Dunkeld the splendid collection of objects which it is, are those also which cause it to be generally unfitted to the painter's art. Intricate, and belonging more frequently to the character of close than of open scenery, the profusion of wood prevents that keeping in the landscape which is so essential in art ; while there is also commonly wanting the contrast arising from vacancy, so necessary, in painting, to relieve mul- tiplicity of ornament ; still more, that contrast of colour and of distance which requires variety of open ground, of bare, green, and grey, and brown ; and, above all, the haze of the vanishing woods and valleys, and the blue of the misty mountain. Still, in its own character, Dun- keld is perfect, even in the nearer grounds of its deep valley ; nor, in its remote parts, is it wanting in all the circumstances that belong to other classes of landscape. Thus, when properly examined, it contains, even for the painter, stores of the most splendid scenery, in every style the blue mountain distance, the wide and rich strath, the narrow and woody glen, the towering rock and precipice, the dark forest, the noble river, the ravine, the cascade, the wild mountain stream, the lake, and all which art and cultivation can add besides to embellish nature. If to this we join all the hourly sources of comfort and enjoyment produced by its sheltered and secluded walks, its river banks, its groves and gar- dens, and alleys, and lowers, its magnificent and various trees, its 138 UUNKELD. flowers and its shrubs, we may with justice say, that it has no rival in Scotland, nor, probably, in all Britain*." The cascadef, the rumbling bridge, the walks, and the new palace, will delight the most fastidious traveller while the celebrated cathedral, " wanting only the roof, and wanting nothing as a ruin," will furnish ample materials for reflection to the antiquary. Had that indiscreet cicerone, Boswell, conducted Dr. Johnson through the Duke of Athol's grounds, the lexicographer would hardly have complained that he saw no tree in Scotland so big round the waist as himself unless the Doctor measured fifteen feet in circumference, which I can hardly imagine, however well proportioned his stomach might be to his brains. The man of words and definitions would appear to have inoculated his Caledonian neighbours, not merely with an itch, but an absolute mania for trees. Wherever we look in this " land of mountain and of flood," our eyes are saluted with the sight of planta- tions, which seem to have come into the world just about the time that the lexicographer went out of it. This may have been a mere coinci- dence, but it is not unlikely that a people who showed themselves so sensitive to Johnson's remarks on scarcity of wood, may have strained every nerve to remove the stigma (if it were one) and disprove the accusation. " The total number of trees planted by this very active cultivator (the late Duke of Athol) amounts to about thirty millions; and the plantations of Dunkeld alone, which are still in progress, cover eleven thousand acres ! How the country has been converted, in this place, from a brown rocky desert to what it now is, is too plain to be indicated; and what it is yet to effect, will be obvious to those who examine the young woods that are shooting up. It is something to have done this, were it only for beauty; but it is much more thus to have added to the public and private resources of the country. The larch has already been used in ship-building, so that its value is ascertained ; but it has been also discovered to possess an advantage that was un- foreseen, in reducing the barren and brown hills to green pastures. Within twenty years, all the heaths, rushes, and former vegetation of the mountains disappear ; and the ground among the woods thus be- comes green, and applicable to the feeding of cattle, so as, from a former value of a few pence, to produce a rent of many shillings for the acre*." The late noble possessor of this princely domain showed the ruling * MacCulloch, vol. i. pp. 16 to 20. ! } In Ossian's Hall the cascade, by means of a reflecting mirror in the ceiling, is reversed, or converted into a waterspout in the ascendant. This may be considered an agreeable variety ; but the taste is somewhat questionable. An additional mirror would have caused the water to fall agreeably to the laws of nature and gravity J MacCulloch, vol. i. p. 43. KILLICRANKIE. 139 passion strong in death. At the age of seventy-five he was hi the habit of sitting for hours every day, contemplating the gorgeous fane that was rising under his direction, in a better situation than the original resi- dence for commanding a fine view over the town towards Perth. Di- rectly on the line of this prospect, and on a handsome eminence, stands a neat house, the property, I understood, of a physician. This was a great eye-sore to the late Duke, and he used every means in his power to remove it and clear the perspective. He wheedled, threatened bribed ; but all in vain. The Doctor stood as firm as one of the great larch or spruce trees in the Duke's lawn; and he, whose ancestors could bring an army of Caterans or slaves into the field, by a note of the pibroch, was unable to dislodge a single tenant, by fair means or foul, to embellish his castle ! Such is the difference between the olden and the modern time ! KILLICRANKIE. Starting from Dunkeld on a beautiful autumnal morning, we ascended the rocky King's Pass, where the valley of the Tay bursts on the view, and the river itself is seen winding below among woods and rocks. This Pass is not uninteresting in itself, while tradition lends its aid, by show- ing us a fissure in the rocks, where DUNCAN HOGG, an ancient High- land CACUS, used to drag those cows which he had lifted on his neigh- bours' fields there'to devour them like a hyaena at his leisure ! From this Pass to Logierat, and even to Blair Athol, the whole drive is one continued, but ever-varying landscape, ever splendid in the distance, ever rich and amusing in the proximate scenery of the road. The finest view of this portion of Strath-Tay is considered to be from an elevated spot near the Duke of Athol's farm. The Tay and the Tumel are here in one stream, winding through bright meadows interspersed with trees, till it rolls along, deep among its wooded banks, a majestic but silent river beneath our feet. On each side rises a long screen of varied hills, clothed with picturesque woods ; the whole vista terminating in the lofty and remote mountains, softened by the blue haze of the distance, as they close in about Killicrankie. At Logierat, the traveller is sure to find a wedding, whatever day in the year he may pass there the nuptials of the beautiful and accom- plished Miss TUMEL to the feudal LORD TAY. This lady, after leaving her paternal mansion, Loch Rannoch, runs a short but brilliant course to the spot where she meets her future lord, and where she changes her name for ever " With a total course not exceeding twenty-five miles, 140 KII/LICRANKIE. it is thus, at its termination, the rival of many Scottish rivers of far longer career. But the Tumel has no infancy no period of weakness and uncertainty, struggling through moss and moor, and claiming, rather from caprice than right, the honours of dominion over contending streamlets. It rises in its vigour from Loch Rannock, already a river ; yet a vassal, and owing feudal service to the all-devouring Tay, in which its name and its waters are alike swallowed up at Logierat." The fate of the Tumel is too often that of human life ; for, if merit and beauty could have rescued it from a violent and premature death, it would have borne its name to the latest hour, and only have terminated its existence in that emblem of eternity, the ocean, at which both its lord and itself finally arrive. The road from Moulinearn to the Garry-bridge owes all its charms to the vale of the Tumel, which is among the most beautiful and romantic in Scotland, though little known. Its distinguishing characters consist in its narrowness and prolongation in the sudden rise and loftiness of the boundaries in the great variety of their rocky outline in the won- derful intricacy of their surfaces and of the woods, rocks, and ravines which cover and intersect them, in the highly-ornamented course of the river. The celebrated cascade of the Tumel is one of the lions of this part of the country ; but no description of it will here be attempted. The following curious reflexions on waterfalls in general, and this one in particular, is more in accordance with the plan of this volume, and I shall make no apology for introducing it here. " I know not where the effects of cascade scenery can be more en- joyed, the impression which it produces can be more felt than here. If the principle of life, a principle that seems to animate all around, is one of r the great causes of the effect which the cascade produces on the mind, not a little also is owing to that image of eternity, which its never beginning, never ending, flow conveys. Nor is that the eternity of the river alone, which flows and will flow on, till time is no more ; but every moment is a moment of power and effort, and every succeeding effort is, like the former, unwearied, unabated. It is a tempest and a fury that never cease. The other wars of the elements are transient ; the ocean billows subside in peace, the thunder rolls away, and the leaves that sounded to the tempest, soon glitter again with all their bright drops in the sun-beam. But the cascade is eternal ; every instant is a storm and a tempest, and the storm and the tempest are for ever. It is a similar feeling which overwhelms the mind in contemplating the grander efforts of machinery, the steam-engine and the tilt-hammer. It is not only the power, the noise, the fire, and the magnitude and brilliancy of these operations, which dazzle and astonish us. Every moment is a KILLICRANKIE. 141 moment of violence and effort, every instant seems the crisis of some grand operation but every succeeding one is like the former, and the unwearied storm of machinery is, like the cascade, the emblem of eter- nity and of eternal power*." THE PASS OP KII.LICRANKIE. In the far-famed Pass of Killicrankie, I confess I was much disap- pointed. The recorded fact that a regiment of Hanoverian soldiers refused to enter it, as it appeared to be the portal to some other world, had raised my expectations to the highest pitch, and I had pictured to my mind a frightful chasm, far surpassing that which separates the Glisshorn from the Gantherhal, and through which the Saltine roars and raves on its way to the valley of the Rhone from the icy summits of the Simplon. So little remarkable, however, was there in this Pass, that some of the travellers, even on the outside of the Inverness mail, would never have imagined that they were traversing it at all, had their attention not been directed towards it by the guard. I really thought, at first, that the guard was hoaxing us, by pointing out a false Killi- crankie, in order to enhance our admiration when the real one came in view. But no ! I was doomed to experience what most people feel every day the disappointment resulting from exaggerated representa- tions and extravagant anticipations. Although this Pass must have appeared more terrific to the Hessian troops, scrambling along the edge of the river, than to us, gliding along an excellent road ; yet I venture to assert that, if they entertained any fear of visiting another world, on the north side of Killicrankie, it was on account of HIGHLAND BAYONETS ! This may afford some key to the panic. " Omitting such scenery (says a celebrated writer) belonging to this romantic and magnificent Pass as is visible from the high-road, the most detailed and perfect conception of its general form must be sought from an elevated spot in the grounds of Coilivrochan, a scene well detailed in Rob- son's popular and accurate work. A totally different style of landscape will be found by descending into the bed of the river, generally supposed inaccessible, and consequently unknown. The bridge of the Garry here affords a striking object from below, as it does from above ; but the most interesting part is that where the river is seen from the high road, struggling through rocks and forming a dark pool. At this part, and for a considerable space, its course is under high cliffs and banks, and amid obstructing rocks, sometimes forming cascades and rapids, at others * MacCulloch, vol. i. p. 430-1. 142 PASS OF KILLICRANKIE. a rippling and gentle stream now breaking like a miniature lake on pebbly shore, and, in another place, a silent pool sleeping beneath the shadow of overhanging trees. Dense woods tower aloft on one side, and, on the other, noble ashes and oaks, perched high above, throw their arms wide over the water ; while, springing from the chasms of the rocks below, the silvery branches and the pale trembling foliage of the aspen, serve to contrast with their dark recesses, aiding, with the bright green of the woodrush, the feathering ferns, and the wild roses, to relieve the broad masses of rock, and adding ornament of detail to grandeur of forms. Nor is it a small cause of the peculiarly striking effect of this scenery, that almost in an instant, after leaving a village and a fre- quented road, we find ourselves in a spot which human foot has never trod, where all traces of the world without have vanished, and where no sound breaks the silence but the murmuring of the stream and the whis- pering of the leaves. It is as if we were suddenly transported into the deepest wilds of unknown mountains, amid masses of ruin and marks of violence, strangely contrasting and enhancing the profound stillness, while they speak the devastations of past ages, which seem as if they could never again return to disturb the calm repose of this solitude*." If it be true that language was given to man in order to conceal his thoughts, it is equally true that descriptions of scenery, whether poetical, pictorial, or prosaic, are well calculated to disguise their prototypes in nature. Of the three classes of painters, he of the brush is decidedly the least extravagant. The poet has a prescriptive right to embellish that is, to lie since fiction is the soul of poesy ; but the graphic deli- neator is, too often, either intolerably dull, stupendously unintelligible, or furiously romantic. If a locality have the good fortune to get betin- selled with meretricious ornaments, or invested with the insignia of sublimity, by some popular pen, it will be heresy or want of taste, in any future observer, to question the accuracy of the portrait. Thus, if any one were to doubt that the Hanoverian soldiers refused to march through the dark ravine of Killicrankie, lest it should lead them into another, and not a better world, he would stand a chance of having Scotland about his ears and perhaps the EDINBURGH REVIEW into the bargain ! For my own part, I am free to confess that, if the pass into the NETHER world be no more formidable than this of Killicrankie ; and if the climate there be no hotter than that of Inverness and Ross-shire, I should not mind taking a month's tour through the dominions of his NETHER-LAND majesty provided always that I was furnished with a regular passe-par -tout from his majesty's charge d'affaires at our own court, where I believe he is never without a representative. * MacCulloch, vol. i. p. 419. A HINT TO TRAVELLERS. 143 And here I may take leave to express my astonishment that none of our adventurous modern travellers have explored these lower regions in search of novelty and wonders ; since Tartarus might yield more ma- terials for book-making than Tartary, the North Pole, or the Alleghany mountains*. The excursion would not, I think, be very difficult, since the Roman bard has expressly assured us that " the descent to Avernus is very easy." The traveller would only have to slide down the crater of Vesuvius, or the shaft of a mine in Cornwall, and he would soon be in a world unexplored since the days of ^Eneas. He might be certain of a warm reception from all classes there, and would prove a welcome guest at every table, were it only for the news which he brought from the upper regions. Considering that no books or journals can descend there, except what are damned here, the sight of a double sheet of the TIMES, the Herald, the Post, or the Chronicle, would be a rare treat ! It would make a table-cloth for Pluto and Proserpine, off which their majesties might breakfast, dine, and sup, for a month, without exhaust- ing the intellectual banquet ! What a fund of information and amuse- ment would the statistical essays of Phillips, Robins, and Squib, afford to our departed squires, many of whom would be not a little surprised at the halo of decorations and improvements with which their late estates had been surrounded at least in the statistical essays ! Some of them, too, might feel rather indignant to find their parks, mansions, and woods consigned to the hammer by their hopeful heirs ! How would Fox and Pitt, Tierney and Sheridan, Wilberforce and Wyndham, Canning and Curran, rub their eyes and wipe their spec- tacles, in order to read the destruction of rotten boroughs, the manu- mission of slaves, the abolition of monopolies, the emancipation of Ca- tholics, the commutation of tithes, the reformations of the church, the progress of knowledge the multiplication of schoolmasters and, (mirabile dictu) the increase of discontent, disaffection, and crime f ' * M. Heraud's " Descent into Hell/' being in verse, can only pass for fiction, and therefore is not entitled to rank with the veritable narratives of prosaic tourists. Captain Ross will, no doubt, give us an animated account of the uninhabitable regions about the Pole, where men may live, like bears, by sucking their paws a most important piece of information in these days and more valuable, perhaps, than all the additions that have been made to geographical science by his Hyperborean predecessors. I beg it to be distinctly understood that I allude to no other TARTARUS than that which has been so carefully explored and accurately described by the highly respectable and veracious traveller, ^ENEAS. f It is not a little curious that Mr. Cobbett, who is no fool, should inveigh against the spread of " laming," among the lower classes, seeing that he himself has laboured for nearly half a century to do that which he condemns. It is sophistry to dissociate learning from knowledge. Without the former, he cannot arrive at the latter unless 144 HINTS TO TRAVELLERS. What would NELSON say to the battle of Navarino ; where Gauls, Bears, and Britons joined, like the Crusaders of old, to slaughter the TURK, our " faithful ally" in the days of Nelson's glory ? How would CATHERINE exult, on learning that her eagled banners waved from the heights of the Balkan to the shores of the Bosphorus ! How would the long line of CAESARS be puzzled, when told that the " KING of ROME" had recently died, a state prisoner, on the Danube that his imperial father had pined and perished, a few years previously, in exile and cap- tivity, on a barren rock in the Atlantic that the Roman empire (such as it is) was swayed by a priest that the martial eagles were changed into peaceable crosses that the barbarian CROATS dictated to imperial Rome from the banks of the Po that on the very summit of the Ca- pitol, an altar was raised, and incense smoked to the GOD, whom their Lieutenant, PILATE, had condemned to death, in Judea, as a MAN ! How would the Cleopatras and the Ptolomies start in horror, or burn with rage, to find that sacrilegious hands had invaded the sanctuaries of their tombs carried off the frail memorials of their former existence, and the earthly tabernacles which they fondly hoped once more to inhabit tore the bitumened cerements from their withered limbs and exposed their inmost vitals to the rude gaze of mortal eyes in Grafton- street and Saville-row ! What would MAHOMET but I forgot ! The Prophet did not conde- scend to visit the nether regions. He galloped off, on his airy courser, to certain pleasure-grounds in the skies, which he had previously laid out in delightful gardens planted with umbrageous trees and stocked with black-eyed houries, in reversion for the. true believers ! Who will deny that Mahomet was a veritable prophet? He foresaw that the ter- ritory of the Mussulman would slip from under his foot on earth and Avisely provided him with ample domains in the Third Heaven *. we make exceptions the general rules. Mr. Cobbett says tbat learning (make it, if you please, merely reading and writing) has increased and so has crime ergo the one is the cause of the other. This is the " Post hoc, ergo propter hoc" argument; of all others the most fallacious. It is the old ratiocination that Tenterden steeple was the cause of the Goodwin Sands. We might just as safely infer that, as crime has increased since the introduction of gas, ergo, gas is the cause of crime ! Who commit crimes ? Answer, MEN. Have men increased in numbers ? Answer, Yes. What say you, Mr. Cobbett, to this little principle of causation ? * No two things present a greater contrast, than Turk and Tartar, in the last scene of human existence ! The Turk, with the certain prospect and belief of a paradise, clings to life with painful and dastard tenacity supplicates his physician in the most abject terms, to ward off the hand of death that is stretched out to conduct him to the presence of the Prophet and struggles against fate, like an animal led to slaughter ! The Tartar, who has no such bright reversion in the skies," succumbs with the apathy KILLICRANKIE TO INVERNESS. 145 But I have digressed too far and the stone, which marks the spot where Claverhouse fell in the arms of victory and death in the noble, but unfashionable cause of legitimacy calls up historical recollections that must not now be indulged. If the gallant Viscount's spirit were permitted, but for one day, to revisit his native mountains, how would he stare to behold a magnificent mail-coach, laden, inside and out, with Englishmen, dashing through the Pass of Killicrankie at the rate of ten miles an hour ! KILLICRANKIE TO INVERNESS. A considerable portion of this dreary route may be characterized in the words of a celebrated modern tourist : " With the slight exception of Loch Garry, it is all a Dalwinnie houseless, treeless, lifeless ; want- ing in every thing but barrenness and deformity while there is not even one object so much worse than another, as to attract a moment's attention. Like itself in the same circumstances, it is as tedious in the passage as disagreeable but, when passed, leaving no impression of time or place." Begging MacCulloch's pardon, it has left an impression on my mind which will not be readily effaced . It presented an emblem of sterility, more striking than the savage mountain of Radicofani, or the volcanic masses that compose the exterior of St. Helena. The same author has instanced the summit of Ben-Nevis, as an excellent station for the TITANS, when they warred against the Gods, and where the stones pro- bably rolled back again on the heads of the impious rebels. But I think the country through which we are now passing, was more likely to have been the scene of action than Ben-Nevis ; since it must have afforded much better footing for the Titan conspirators, and a far ampler arsenal of artillery for their stony warfare with the skies ! " I've traversed many a mountain strand, Abroad and in my native land, And it has been my fate to tread Where safety more than pleasure led; Thus many a waste I've wander' d o'er, Clomb many a crag, cross'd m:my a moor, But by my Halidome, A scene so rude, so wild as this, Yet so sublime in barrenness, Ne'er did my wandering footsteps press, Where'er I happ'd to roam." of a Stoic, or the fortitude of a Christian evincing in the trying hour of dissolution that nonchalance which his prouder neighbour exhibits through the greater part of his life ! See Dr. Madden's highly interesting travels in the East. L 146 A HANGING BRIDGE. Notwithstanding the dreariness of the route from Blair-Athol to Inverness, I have seldom made a more pleasant journey. Agreeable and intelligent companions will convert a wilderness into a paradise, at any time, as I have often experienced, in my journey through life ; and never, perhaps, was the exterior of the Inverness mail better garnished with brains than on the present occasion. The whole journey, in fact, was a festival of intellect ; and the effusions of wit, intelligence, and erudition, that were wasted on the chilling breezes that swept the rugged mountains and blasted heaths, on each side of us, might have been turned to good account by some of the short-hand writers, and long-headed prosers of Modern Babylon or Modern Athens. But the winds were too cold, and the intellectual corruscations too vivid, to permit my fingers to note impressions on this route, with the exception of a very few particulars. A HANGING BRIDGE. This was an object very little anticipated in the Highlands; but it differed considerably from that over the Menai. On coming to the top of a little eminence, we were startled at the sight of a couple of horses hanging on the outside of a singled-arched bridge in the valley beneath dangling in the air, at the end of a broken pole, and suspended by their traces over a roaring torrent ! The coach itself seemed not" to have quite made up its mind, whether or not it would follow the horses ; but it was evidently inclined to that side of the question, as in duty bound. Not so the passengers, who appeared to have been suddenly stricken with that dreadful disease hydrophobia, and were jumping down and tumbling out, in the utmost precipitation, horror-struck at the idea of changing their mode of travelling from land to water-car- riage. Meantime, the guard, the coachman, and two or three volun- teers, wisely came to the conclusion, that the time had passed away, even in the Highlands, for executing refractory criminals, in this sum- mary way, before trial by jury, or the sentence of a judge. They there- fore proceeded to cut the traces of the suspended parties, and with more success than on a noted occasion in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, for, on dropping from the gibbet, the Highland horses plunged into the torrent (an element nearly as congenial to them as the atmosphere,) disappeared under the bridge, scrambled up the steep bank of the river, and, in half an hour, were yoked to a broken pole, and a lightened load of live-lumber, the majority of the passengers preferring a pedes- trian excursion to the next inn, to the risk of another " whamble" over the range-wall of a bridge ! BADENOCH CAIRN-GORUMS. 147 The Inverness mail requires REFORM. The proprietors think that John Bull cannot have too much variety; and therefore they give him a new coachman every ten miles, at the trifling expense of a decimile demand on his purse ! Fortunately we had a HUMITE among our number, who calculated to an azimuth what we had to pay the coach- man at each stage. The result was FOURPENCE a dividend which called forth every hour and a half such a jargon of unintelligible languages (God save the mark), as never was heard at the Tower of Babel, or in any other place, except the road from Killicrankie to Inverness ! Tem- pora mutantur. The peal of laughter which rose from the top of the mail-coach, at Sawney's rage and disappointment, only heightened the paroxysm of fury, by reminding the aggrieved party of the change of times, since the days of Rob Roy, or Donald Bean Lean, when the surly Sassenachs would have suffered severely for their refusal to pay " black mail" for safe passport through the Highland mountains! On this route we pass two remarkable mansions one the den of a wolf, ample and splendid enough for the residence of a baron : the other, the retreat of a prince, scarcely fit for the lair of a wild beast! The former is called BADENOCH, though I would say it was GOOD EXOCGH too good, indeed for the red savage in man's form, its quondam inhabitant. In the latter, or retreat, Prince Charles Edward learnt more sound philosophy and true wisdom, than in the court or the camp. In the field of Culloden, he received the lesson of misfortune but it was in the cavern of Strath-Spey that he learnt to bear it with fortitude, acting up to the precept of the Roman poet " Rebus angustis, animosus atque Forlis appare. On the right hand we passed a dreary mountain, where stones, ga- thered on the Andes, and purchased in London for twopence a piece, are sold by Sawney to the silly Southron Sassenachs, as real CAIRN- GORUMS, for five shillings each ! And where is the harm in this ? We aic assured, on the authority of Shakspeare, that he who is robbed, not knowing what he has lost, is not robbed at all. Why should not a penny be turned into half a crown on a Highland mountain as well as on a Lowland plain ? The one pebble is just as good as the other in a lady's broach or Cockney's seal. There is not more profit or loss on the Scoto-Brazilian bauble, than on many other articles of commerce. How dearly do we pay for crabbed words scrawled widely on dirty parchment, from the lawyer for hieroglyphics, in dog Latin, from the doctor for blue-pill and black broth, from the apothecary for burnt bones and alum, from the baker for sloe-juice and sure death from the vintner for permission to see the sun, from the tax-gatherer for the L2 148 OSSIAN. preservation of old constitutions, by the Tories for the reformation of them by the Whigs for the destruction of them by the Radicals for long stories, little wit, and less information, from the circulating library for dull prosing in the senate for special pleading at the bar for in- spired effusions from the pulpit, redolent of schism, in the guise of Scrip- ture, and better calculated to pull down the steeple than to repair the church : in short, for every article of commerce, material or intellectual, not one of which escapes adulteration, substitution, or deterioration in its transit from retailer to customer. Let us not, therefore, condemn the industrious lapidary of the Highland mountains. An act is merito- ous or culpable according to the intention. Sawney's object is to ame- liorate the condition of his family by transferring a portion of super- fluous wealth from the citizen to the cottager. He is merely an agent in the great and salutary operations of Providence, by which unnatural accumulations in the body politic are diminished ; in the same way that local plethora, in the human frame, is relieved by the suction of the leech, an animal, whose selfish propensities are turned to good account by the skilful physician. We passed another locality on this road which few travellers can con- template without emotion the identical spot where Ossian was born, and where his father, to whose memory a monument is erected, lived and died. There can be no doubt that Fingal Macpherson, the parent of Ossian, laboured under that species of insanity which is termed mono- mania, or mental illusion on some particular point. The proofs would have satisfied any commission of lunacy that ever sat in Gray's-Inn Coffee-house. First, he asserted, and maintained, to the last day of his life, that his own son was born many centuries before himself and secondly, that Ossian was the son of a king, and not of a Highland sub- ject. But the grand proof consisted in the astounding fact that a mo- dern writer and especially a poet, was overburthened with modesty preferring the humble title of TRANSLATOR to AUTHOR the insignificant merit of distilling other men's conceptions through his own sensorium, to the magnificent and envious distinction of ORIGINAL COMPOSER ! This is beyond all credibility ; and therefore we are led to the inevitable conclusion, that poor Macpherson was a monomaniac, and carried the hallucination with him to the grave. But whether original or translated, the poetical prose of Ossian was penned in a situation not ill adapted for the effusions of poetry or madness, so nearly allied to each other, if not identical. Such wild mountains, barren heaths, and gloomy skies would have made an Italian sad and a Frenchman serious. One winter here would have caused Voltaire to cut his throat Rabelais to write hymns Sterne to turn Methodist Croker to be blunt Hook to be CULLODEN. 149 prosy Mathews to be mute and Yates, in consequence, to be a QUAKER ! In the foregoing reflections, however, I am only shadowing forth the general opinion, as to the authenticity of Ossian's Poems, on the south side of the Tweed. The following is probably the real state of the case. Macpherson collected, partly from oral traditions, partly from manu- scripts, the poems assigned to Ossian, filling up lacunse, and joining scattered fragments, as well as he could, and in language as nearly resembling the original as possible. These he published, little anti- cipating the storm of criticism and crimination that was to burst over his head. The poems attracted so much attention, and their merits were so lauded, not to say exaggerated, that the translator was placed between the horns of a dilemma. If he produced the proofs of authen- ticity (which, by the by, would have been very difficult under the fore- going circumstances) he lost the credit of being their author at that time an enviable distinction ! If he refused proof, he fell under the suspicion, and even the open accusation of imposture ! He chose the latter, leaving posterity to unriddle the enigma as they best may. Thus the pride of being thought a poetical genius may have counterbalanced the reproach (and that, too, unfounded) of literary mendacity. I find the belief in the authenticity of Ossian very firm among those who are best acquainted with the Gaelic language in the Highlands. Some of the MSS. are said to be lately discovered; and there are people yet living, who can repeat hundreds or even thousands of lines corre- sponding with parts of the original poems. But to make a long journey, if not a long story short, I shall only allude to one other remarkable locality on this route : a widely ex- tended plain, the name of which will draw forth the sigh of sorrow from Highland hearts, so long as mists gather round their mountains, or streams pour over their rocks. A chivalrous youth, whose name was Charles, took a violent longing for a velvet bonnet with a gold band, worn by a distant relation of his own, a Mr. George, and claimed it, on the plea that it had formerly belonged to his forefathers. The actual possessor of the bonnet resisted the claim, on the plea that it had only been lent to Mr. Charles's ancestor, and that the lawful owners had placed it on the head of the defendant, in the most legitimate manner. As the point could not be settled by law, it was referred to the arbitration of the bayonet not, as in the days of chivalry, to be decided by personal combat, but by a general conflict among all the friends of both parties ! The contest for this bauble drenched the field of Culloden with human gore blanched it with the bones, and fattened it with the flesh of war- riors and patriots, whose valour was their misfortune, whose loyalty was 150 INVERNESS. their crime, and whose fidelity was, at once, their punishment and their reward ! " Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi." The literal translation of which line is " When kings begin to quarrel, economical subjects ought to lose no time in purchasing mourning." INVERNESS. I trust that the reader who has thus far travelled with the author, is in no fear of long descriptions. When I say that the town (I beg par- don, the CAPITAL) in which we have safely arrived, may be character- ized as a handsome CITY pleasantly situated on two sides of a river with a bridge in the middle a mountain (Craig Phaedric) on the north, and a plain (Culloden) on the south a frith to the east, and a canal to the west a church, without a steeple ; and a steeple without a church (that ornament being placed over the jail) an excellent inn (or more) clean streets and decent houses inhabitants not extremely unlike those of other large towns in Scotland, or even in England, having shoes on their feet, stockings on their legs, inexpressibles where they ought to be coats on their backs, hats, or caps, on their heads sneeshin in their mulls whiskey in their stomachs no lack of brains in their skulls and very intelligible Scoto-English in their mouths there is little else necessary to be said of Inverness. As to the ladies, I will not libel them, as Pope has done, by saying that they have " no characters at all," for I believe the fair sex of Inverness have all very good characters. If we are to distinguish them, however, as the same satirist has done by the complexion " black, brown, or fair," I would say that the Highland ladies have more of the rose than their English neighbours more of the lily than the French, and more of both than the Spanish or Italian belles. If these latter have more fire in their eyes than the Caledonian fair, they owe it to their brilliant stars and cloudless skies phenomena extremely rare in the Highlands! But if an ardent sun kindles heavenly light in a jet black eye, it is more than suspected of sometimes engendering unhallowed fires in the throbbing heart, not too favourable to the exercise of Chris- tian virtues, connubial vows, or domestic duties ! Tourists are the most fortunate people in the world. They seldom fail to find some remarkable incident or occurrence, just happening when they visit a place, as if for the very purpose of being put on record by their fertile pens. It was my good or evil star to be in Inverness CHOLERA ECCLESIASTES. 151 when an event occurred there, unprecedented in the annals of that capital, or even of the Highlands themselves. On the very day that I took up my quarters in the Caledonian Hotel, another, and I have the vanity to think, a much less welcome visiter, arrived in the town the INDIAN CHOLERA ! Having been formerly on terms of intimacy rather than of friendship with this unhallowed stranger, in his native country, I was apprehensive, at first, that I might be suspected of introducing him clandestinely, and in defiance of the quarantine laws ; but my fears were soon dispelled, by learning that the blame was universally cast on the guard of a mail-coach, who had died of cholera, or rather of cold winds and hot whiskey, some place between Aberdeen and Inverness. I was therefore at liberty to go about, and observe the effects of the panic on the inhabitants at largBj without suspicion of being an infected per- sonage myself. Had not the poor guard been dead, and consequently irresponsible, I think my conscience would have compelled me to take the blame on myself, as I was far more likely to have carried the dire contagion to the capital of the Highlands, than the man who blew the horn on the top of the stage-coach, over the blasted heath of the Weird Sisters. The clergy, in all countries, perhaps in all ages, have been the chief depositories of knowledge, and are therefore the most rational and enlightened class of society. The Scottish clergy were, in my mind, pre-eminently entitled to this distinction ; and to them I directed my particular attention, on this occasion. The pestilence broke out on Thursday, and, on Sunday, every pulpit in Inverness resounded with the fearful annunciation. I attended at three churches, during that day, but shall only notice the doctrines propounded in one of them, where, by all accounts, the most learned, pious, and popular pastor of Inverness presided. The text (if I recollect right) was from Amos : " Seek ye the true God, and ye shall not die." A more appropriate and exhilarating portion of Scripture could hardly have been selected, because it pointed out to the sinner the means of escaping the cholera, and confirmed the righteous in his security against the evil. The text was repeated fifty times in the course of two hours and a half, a strong emphasis being always laid on " the true God." The preacher did not that day explain what the " TRUE GOD" was, because, no doubt, the distinction between true and false deities had been, long before, made patent to the audience. The address was exceedingly energetic, and, I have no doubt, sincere, on the part of the preacher ; for tears started frequently in his eyes. If it was not quite convincing to my mind, it was evidently undoubted as holy writ, on the minds of the audience, if any judgment could be 152 CHOLERA ECCLESIASTES. formed by their looks and gestures. That the promise of not dying referred to this world, rather than to the next, was, I think, unques- tionable ; else why should such a text have been selected on the out- break of cholera ? The holy man assured his audience, that he who sought the " true God," would escape death, and every evil till the natural course of events called him from this scene of trouble. His argu- ments appeared to me to be those of the PORTICO, rather than of the body of the Temple of PRODICUS than of a CHRISTIAN PASTOR. This convic- tion resulted from a saving clause in the winding up of the discourse. A good man, he said, might possibly fall under the pestilence that now visited them ; but then, it would not be an evil it would not be death but a happy translation from a land of misery to a land of happiness. Prodicus never sent forth a more refined argument ! According to the preacher, the Indian cholera was wholly a dispensa- tion of the Almighty, on a sinful people. He maintained this proposi- tion by an appeal to facts. It had been ten times more destructive in other countries than in Great Britain because the people of those countries were a wicked and ungodly people ! Unhappily for his argu- ments, it had been much more fatal in Scotland than in England ; though the Scotch are universally allowed to know the " true God" better than their Southron neighbours. Not the slightest allusion was made to the possibility of the epidemic arising from natural causes. No. It was a direct visitation of God, on nations and on individuals, for their sins ! This is a serious doctrine ! Let us examine it a little more closely. Did the pestilence fall exclusively on the wicked ? It fell chiefly on the wicked provided always that they were very poor. The rich man might murder, rob, and ruin all around him he was per- fectly safe from cholera. The poor man might be the most virtuous, religious, industrious of his race but poverty was the sin that rendered him the sure victim of the epidemic ! Such is the species of justice with which MAN has dared to invest his CREATOR ! If cholera was sent by a supernatural power on earth, as a scourge, and independent of natural causes that power would seem to have been EVIL, rather than GOOD ; for imagination can hardly conceive a visitation more partial and unjust, than the pestilence in question *. * There is nothing new under the sun. When the plague broke out in the Grecian camp, before Troy, the priests, at once, declared that it was sent by one of their (false) gods. When the cholera invaded Scotland, it was declared by holy men to be a destroy, ing angel from the " true God." On the banks of the Scamander, sacrifices and cere- monies were employed to stay the plague : on the shores of the Forth, gunpowder was detonated, old rags were burnt, and chlorides were sprinkled to stop the cholera ! In one particular, however, the ancient and the modern soothsayers widely differed. The CHOLERA ECCLESIASTES. 153 And how dare ignorant and presumptuous man to lay his finger on a single item in the long black catalogue of human afflictions, and say, this one is a messenger from the Deity to scourge human beings (pro- vided they are poor and wretched) for their sins, while all the others spring from natural causes ? In the very first year of the pestilence (1832) consumption carried to the grave double the number of those who fell victims to the epide- mic, in this country. But cholera came from God, while consumption comes from climate! This doctrine is scarcely less impious than preposterous. More than one half of the towns, villages, and hamlets of England, entirely or almost entirely escaped the dire visitation ergo, there were no sins to be punished in these favoured spots. Of the two universities, Oxford [the poor of] was scourged, while Cambridge re- mained free ergo the poor inhabitants of Oxford were wicked, while the fat professors and the virtuous youths of both seminaries \vere the chosen people ! Glasgow, where stands the colossal statue of John Knox, was desolated by cholera ; but Rome, where the lady in scarlet is considered to hold her court, has hitherto remained free from the pestilence ! Some thousands of infants at the breast perished FOR THEIR SINS ! Almost the whole of the profligate, irreligious, debauched, cruel, un- charitable, but wealthy population were shielded, by the arm of the Almighty, from the destroying angel that swept off the poor, and left their widows and orphans to mourn in misery and want! Such is the dispensation of Providence, as propounded ex cathedra, and very gene- rally believed, especially in North Britain ! That vice, provided it was conjoined with want, was a frequent victim to the pestilence, cannot be denied. But the observation applies to all diseases as well as to cholera. Let the same vice be well fed and clothed, and Providence will send no cholera to such quarters. Again. If there be (and I firmly believe there is) a future state of rewards and punishment, is it quite safe to represent the Divinity as constantly employed in chastising sin in this world, by means of poverty and pestilence always ready in fact " To deal damnation round the land On each we judge his foes?" This propensity to exhibit the Creator of the universe for ever inter- fering with the general laws which he established, and punishing by temporal adversity or affliction, those who suffer on this earthly stage, Grecians had a" FEAST, after the ceremony of exorcism : the Caledonians, a FAST. The plague ceased immediately on the plains of Troy ; the cholera was invariably aggravated by fasts, fumigations, and segregations, in the valleys of the north ! 154 CHOLERA ECCLESIASTES. is one of the greatest blots on the Christian character, and is little less than an argument against a future state of rewards and punishments. And here I would ask the advocate of the divine origin of cholera, for the rationale of all those human means of prevention and cure which they unanimously and strenuously employ to arrest the pestilence sent forth by the express command of God ? Prayer is unobjectionable ; but what shall we say to fumigation and chloride of lime ? To return to Inverness. The eloquence, the fervour, and, I have no doubt, the conscientious zeal of the preacher had all the effects which he could desire, on the general mass of the audience. That sermon, I do think, sent some to their graves by cholera, who would otherwise have escaped ! The ghastly features, the quivering lip, the upturned eye, the heaving bosom all showed how effectually the denunciations from the pulpit were predisposing to, and aiding the epidemic influence, which was spreading over the land. Inverness suffered severely and so did Scotland generally. No wonder. Terror was the prime auxi- liary of the natural causes which occasioned cholera; and the injudi- cious orations from some of the pulpits gave an additional power of de- structiveness to the epidemic. I have not made these observations without some study of the sub- ject; and should the dire scourge ever again visit the banks of the NESS, I would advise the eloquent preacher to teach the more rational, philosophic, and Christian doctrine : that man was placed here below, under general laws, that were dispensed equally to the just and unjust that these laws were not interrupted or superseded to punish vice in the poor man, and give immunity to the rich that vices and crimes naturally draw on the perpetrators certain physical and moral punish- ments in this world, in accordance with the laws imposed on it by the Creator; but not of divine interpositions that the balance of virtue and vice was to be struck in another state of existence, and not on this globe, since even the most inexorable judge, on earth, would not punish twice for the same crime that it is little less than impious in man to denominate visitations of sickness as judgments for sins, seeing that the most profligate often escape, whilst the most virtuous suffer and, finally, that the impulse to religion and morality should rest more on the hope of future happiness, than on the fear of temporal affliction. VITRIFIED FORTS; 155 CRAIG PH/EDRIC VITRIFIED FORTS. I am ashamed to say that till lately I was very little acquainted with the controversy respecting the vitrified forts in Scotland, so long car- ried on between antiquarians, geologists, and mineralogists. At Inver- ness, however, my curiosity was excited by the account which a young geologist gave us at the inn, as to the exquisite specimen which was to be seen on the neighbouring mountain of Craig Phaedric. Four of us started early, one fine morning, and crossing the river and the canal, climbed through a steep woody acclivity and reached the summit of a co- nical mountain, about eleven hundred feet high, where we found ourselves in the vitrified fort. The top of the hill is in the form of a shallow oval cup set in a saucer, nearly filled with some solid substance, the edges of which, (those parts of them, at least, that were uncovered by earth, grass, and brush-wood,) being composed of masses of rock, exactly re- sembling lava. The south side of Craig Phaedric consists of a series of precipices and huge masses of rock, all the way down to the plain. We examined this side of the mountain with great care and labour, chipping off pieces of the rock, during the whole descent. They were all composed of the same substance as that which constituted the two walls, interior and exterior, above mentioned. Having detached a piece from a mass of rock half the size of St. Paul's, near the foot of the mountain, I showed it to the geologist at the inn, who pronounced it to be a very fine specimen of the vitrified fort on the summit of Craig Phsedric ! Then, said I, one side of the mountain at least, if not both sides, is composed of the same kind of substance which you now hold in your hand. The geologist was astonished, and expressed a determi- nation to re-examine the mountain farther. lu my own mind, not a shadow of doubt remains that Craig Phaedric is a volcanic mountain that its summit was the crater of an extinct volcano that advantage was taken of the locality, to form a fort or place of defence and that the rocks were vitrified by subterranean fire, and not by human art. That the masses of lava, now existing on the summit and sides of Craig Phaedric, were vitrified by Roman, Celt, or Sassenach, is about as probable as that the basaltic columns of Staffa were baked, like bricks, in the Cave of Fingal, converted into an oven for that purpose; or that the Giants' Causeway was fused in a tinker's crucible, and spilt by accident into the sea, near Ballycastle, in Ireland. I speak only of CRAIG PH^DRIC, which I have personally examined ; and I appeal to all those who take trouble or interest in the matter, to decide this question. That the conical hills of Scotland were the result 156 ORIGIN OF RIP VAN WINKLE. of subterranean fire, rather than of superincumbent water, few will now deny : and that localities of this kind should be selected for defensive positions, in times of war, there is every probability ; but that such su- perhuman efforts should have been used to fuse whole mountains of stone, in the cheerless wilds of Caledonia, to resist the darts and arrows of savages, is a conception worthy of an antiquary, and of an antiquary only. The cui bono ? may also be asked. Of what use was this fusing or vitrifying of the stones composing the walls of these hill-forts ? There was no cannon in those days to batter them, nor is it likely that the savages then existing had catapultas or battering rams. The large stones piled together were just as good defence as after vitrifaction. The assailants must have been pretty considerably stupid not to climb over these stones whether vitrified or not. TOM-NA-HEURICH RIP VAN WINKLE. Between Inverness and Craig Phaedric, the eye encounters a fantastic mount or knoll, starting suddenly from the plain, and, apparently, the alluvial fragment or relic of an earlier world, which doggedly maintained its post, while the whole of its neighbours were hurried headlong into the Murray Frith, during a convulsive pang of nature that rent old Scotland in twain, and saved the Caledonian Canal Company a vast expense afterwards. It is not inaptly compared to a gigantic ship, cap- sized and keel upwards, with trees instead of barnacles on her bottom. That such a curious and unaccountable piece of ground should be ten- anted by kelpies and other creatures of imagination, is not wonderful ; but how it came to be assigned as the tumulus or tomb of Thomas the Rhymer, is not so clear. Certainly it would serve as a barrow to cover all that ever departed this life in Inverness and twenty miles around, without giving them cause for complaint as to room for swinging their hammocks. Be this as it may, I little expected to find that TOM-NA- HEURICH had given birth to the original RIP VAN WINKLE, and Rip's brother, some centuries before Yates appeared in the character of Pro- teus, or Washington Irving took crayon in hand. Let us hear the legend of the knoll. Several hundred years ago, two itinerant musi- cians (fiddlers) arrived in Inverness, and gave public notice of their attainments and entertainments. In a short time after their arrival, they were waited on by a venerable old gentleman, with a long grey beard, who engaged their services for company assembled at a castle in the neighbourhood. The contract was soon closed, and old grey-beard conducted them, in the night, to a palace of which they were ignorant, ORIGIN OF RIP VAN WINKLE. 151 and whose name they were not told. They found there an assembly of august personages, who danced merrily during a long night, and plied the tired fiddlers with abundance of excellent whiskey. Whether or not the musicians had a nap in the morning, is not recorded ; but they were next day dismissed, with handsome recompense for their labours. They had scarcely issued however from the portals of the palace, when the ma- jestic fabric disappeared, and they found themselves on the brow ofToM- NA-HEURICH ! This circumstance quickened, rather than retarded their pace back to Inverness, where a phenomenon still more astonishing greeted their eyes. In the course of a single night, the town had so entirely altered its appearance, that they could not easily recognize it as the place which they had left the preceding evening. There were new houses where no houses had stood and old houses, where new ones had been just finished. The whole town had grown much larger the inhabitants were dressed differently from what they had been their language, even, was altered the names over the shop-doors and inns were changed and not a human being could they find of their former acquaintances ! Their inquiries were listened to with surprise, and their tale was treated with ridicule. They were considered by some as lu- natics by others as impostors. They resorted to their instruments ; but their music was as antiquated as themselves. At length an old man, who attentively hearkened to their narrative, and sedulously brushed up his memory, recollected a story of his grandfather respecting two musicians who, about a hundred years before, had left the town late one evening were seen crossing the ferry in a boat, without any ferryman and were afterwards observed by a peasant, hastily ascending TOM- NA-HKURICH. They were never afterwards seen, and their friends con- cluded that they had either been carried off by the kelpies, or kidnapped and sent to the colonies. The fiddlers were now astonished in their turn, and began to survey each other, with fear and trembling. It being Sunday, they repaired to the church ; but the clergyman had no sooner opened the Bible and pronounced the name of God, than the two musi- cians crumbled into a handful of dust. Here then we have the story of RIP VAN WINKLE, in a slightly modified version, by substituting Thomas Lermont for Old Hudson. But Geoffrey Crayon may have gone higher than Inverness for the original of Van Winkle : though the constant influx of Highlanders into America, laden more with legendary than with any other kind of lore, may create suspi- cions as to the source whence he drew the story of RIP VAN WINKLE. 158 CALEDONIAN CANAL. CALEDONIAN CANAL. It is hardly possible to contemplate the great valley of the Ness, with- out coming to the conclusion that the German and Atlantic Oceans once communicated through this long and narrow chasm, thus separat- ing Caledonia into two distinct parts. But if so, how comes a lake now in the centre, some ninety feet higher than the level of either ocean ? It may be accounted for, by supposing that the high or mountainous banks of this strait fell in during some earthquake or convulsion, so as to block up the chasms in two or three places say at Inverness and Fort Augustus, thus insulating, as it were, the site of Loch Ness. The consequence would be that the lake would gradually rise, by the streams from the mountains, till the water found an exit, as at present, into the Murray Frith. Thus Loch Ness and Loch Lochy would be formed high above the level of the sea, and consisting of fresh water instead of salt. Suppose the mouth of Loch Etive to be dammed up by fragments from the adjacent mountains (as at the Trosachs) the rampart or dam being ninety feet high. The lake, which is now salt, would gradually become fresh, and rise, till an exit was found over the obstructing mound; and then, instead of the rapids, observed now, at ebb tide, we shou d have a waterfall of ninety feet in height, into Loch Linhe. Supposing again, that this state continued for some centuries, and another convulsion tore away the mound, or great part of it, and allowed Loch Etive to empty all its acquired height of waters into the sea ; we should then have parallel roads all round the lake, ninety feet above its then level. Although nature seemed determined to block up this inland strait in several places, the nineteenth century, and the march of intellect, have been able to connect, not only the scattered lakes with one another, but the German with the Atlantic Ocean ! The construction of the Caledonian Canal was truly a national UNDERTAKING at least in the funereal sense of the word for the nation buried here about a million and a half of money, never to rise again ! During the revolutionary and the imperial war, indeed, John Bull was the greatest UNDERTAKER in Europe. He buried millions, annually, on the plains of Marengo, Aus- terlitz, Friedland, and various celebrated graveyards besides heaving many spare millions injto the Nile, the Danube, the Scheldt, and the Vistula ! Not content with the thriving trade of UNDERTAKER, he turned PAWNBROKER also, and advanced large sums to various noble personages abroad upon very slender securities namely, their word of CALEDONIAN CANAL. 159 honour ! I believe there has not been a single pledge redeemed, and duplicates of their tickets might now be purchased in Downing-street, for a very small sum. In respect to the Caledonian Canal, if a new Berigonium was to rise from its ashes, on the western extremity of this magnificent aqueduct, to vie with Inverness, on the eastern, the canal would never return two shillings and sixpence per cent., in the shape of profit. Still, it gave employment to several thousand poor Scotch and Irish labourers for twenty years and in this respect the UNDERTAKING speculation was nmch better than the PAWNBROKING adventure*. A couple of steamers seem to be the principal carriers of commerce and tourists on this canal ; for the idea of ships from the Baltic taking this route, appears to be altogether chimerical. There does not, indeed, seem to be any possible circumstance or concourse of circumstances that can ever give commer- cial importance to the Caledonian Canal. If the Orkney and Shetland Islands were to take a fit of fertility, and pour forth corn, wine, and oil as plentifully as the banks of the Arno, the trade to Oban through this canal would be very little increased. The products above men- tioned would find better markets, and less circuitous channels. The scenery along this stupendous canal presents more of the wild and sublime, than of the beautiful and picturesque. In the intervals between the locks we see genuine specimens of Highland life, and High- land habitations. Some parts of the Sapphic Ode which Dr. Johnson penned in the Isle of Sky, are very applicable to this place : " Permeo terras, ubi nuda rapes Saxeas miscet nebulis ruinas, Torva ubi rident steriles colon! Rura labores. Pervagor gentes, hominum ferorum Vita ubi nullo decorata cultu Squallet informis, tugurique fumis Foeda latescit." * It is curious that comparatively few of the native and neighbouring Highlanders availed themselves of the high pay which was given for labour on this canal; so that the work was chiefly done by Irish and Lowland labourers, though the system of eject- ment was then in full force, and thousands were out of employ. Colonel Stewart and others, have endeavoured to account for this backwardness the/inner by concluding that the natives were disgusted with their cruel landlords, and a-hamed to work, as day- labourers, where they had previously lived as small farmers the latter aver that the preference was given to Irish and Lowlanders, who laboured at an inferior rate of wages and by cnntract. which threw money into the contractors' pockets. It is probable that both these arguments are, to a certain extent, just and also that the Highlanders had an aversion to a species of labour foreign to their habits, and derogatory to their pride. 160 CALEDONIAN CANAL FALL OF FYERS. In Loch Ness itself, the banks rise, especially on the north side, almost perpendicular, to the height of five, six, or seven hundred feet, and consequently preclude all view of the neighbouring country. The winds are almost always from one of two points of the compass that is, in the direction of the Loch, through the channel of which they rush along, from the east or from the west, with great violence, as through a tunnel or a funnel. The Fall of Fyers is the chief lion to be seen, on the southern shore. Dr. Johnson could never have scrambled up to this place, with his asthmatic lungs. It was fortunate for him that he approached it by the military road, and therefore descended to the cataract. There were only naked rocks when he visited Fyers the water having all run down into Loch Ness to quench its thirst in the preceding drought. The skipper of the steamer (the honest little, dapper, and good-natured Captain Turner) gave us but a very limited time to see the waterfall, and the race up the mountain's side was not a little diverting ! The young and the vigorous made directly for the object of attraction, led on by the mate of the vessel, who would have outstripped an English hunter at least on this course. A crafty tourist the oldest in the batch eyed the topography for a minute or two, after landing ; and taking the zig-zag path, which was treble the distance of the direct route, got to the waterfall long before any of his juniors, who were not a little sur- prised to find him there, contemplating the magnificent scene, from a projecting rock, with perfect composure, while they were so blown by scrambling up through the furze, the underwood, and the thickets, that they required some time to recover breath before they could enjoy the scene. Although this is one of the best, if not the very best waterfall in Scotland, I cannot entirely coincide with Dr. Clarke, that it is a finer fall than that of TIVOLI, and inferior only to TERNI. I have seen several in Switzerland, which I think superior but, nevertheless, it is extremely well worth visiting. The lower fall is two hundred and forty feet, and pours through a narrow gullet, in a round unbroken stream, whitening as it descends, till it boils and disappears among chasms in the rock. It has been compared (magna componere parvis) to an " old Jew's beard" though a white mare's tail (I mean the streaky cloud of that name) would have been more Ossianic, as well as more appropriate. The dense mist which rises from the cauldron below, is said by Mr. Chambers (a very excellent writer, I allow) to be " like the heavenward aspirations of an afflicted and tortured spirit." Never having seen these " aspirations" in any sensible form, I am unable to confirm or contradict the truth of the simile. It is very probable, how- CALEDONIAN CANAL FORT AUGUSTUS. 161 ever that, from a dense Scotch congregation, labouring under the elo- quence of an enthusiastic preacher, and where the text was CHOLERA, the " aspirations" of an affrighted multitude would rise like a dense riiist from the Fall of Fyevs. In the upper fall, the cascade descends, by three leaps, through a yawning gulf, and vanishes in the dark ravine, which is covered with birch, for ever dripping with the spray of the cataract. Re-embarking in the steamer, we plough our way amidst wild and dreary scenery, till we arrive at FORT AUGUSTUS. Here we have a series of locks to ascend, in order to reach the level of Loch Oich. The tourist has therefore ample time to see Fort Augustus, and travel on, by the banks of the Canal to Loch Oich. This august fortress has a gar- rison of THREE INVALID ARTILLERYMEN ! Mr. Chambers archly ob- serves that FORT AUGUSTUS, "having long ago accomplished the pur- pose of its creation (erection I would say) it is now, like Fort George, perfectly useless a mere superannuated thing, kept in pay, like a pen- sioner, from gratitude." What was this purpose of its creation ? To keep the Highlanders from rising, and moving south ? If so, it has not answered its purpose. The Highlanders may now rise and march as fast as they please, to the banks of the Clyde or the Thames. Tant mieux ! When we get into Loch Oich, the scenery becomes more humanized for, besides the ruins of Glengarry's ancient castle, and the modern residence of this eccentric chief, we have a monument over a well, into w hich one of his ancestors coolly threw seven heads cut from the bodies of his enemies, the Kennedies, with as much sang froid, as a gardener would lop off seven heads of cabbages for Covent-Garden Market ! That the Kennedies did not lose their heads, without having previously deca- pitated at least an equal number of the Glengarries, we may take for granted, since the Highlanders are too wise a people to pay more than a fair interest for their money, or return more favours than they receive. But we are now ploughing through Loch Lochy, and a wilder scene of silence, solitude, and sterility than that which surrounds us on all sides, cannot easily be found or imagined ! If the raids, feuds, and rebellions of the Highlands did not assure us that MAN had once existed here, we would naturally conclude that the human foot had never pene- trated into these gloomy regions. , We are only left the alternative, that he has deserted these glens and mountains, to seek some more genial soil. This leads me to a melancholy subject. 162 DEPOPULATION. DEPOPULATION. Those who have travelled much through this weary world, at home or abroad, in the east or in the west, in the north or the south, must have been struck with one thing remarkable the presence of a Scotch- man, in every habitable spot on the surface of this globe. In all my peregrinations (and they have not been few) I found that this was the only rule without exception. I had long, therefore, pictured Scotland, in my mind, as a land of more redundant population than China itself, where it would be very difficult for a stone to fall from heaven, without lighting on the head of some subject of the Celestial Empire. What was my astonishment, then, to find the Land of Cakes (especially the Highlands) more sparingly inhabited than any country through which I had passed, with the exception, perhaps, of-that very interesting tract which lies between the Nile and the Red Sea the Sandy Desert ! Eager- ness to solve problems, is one of the most characteristic traits of the hu- man mind, though quite overlooked by philosophers, in searching for dis- tinctions between man and animals. I had formerly, as may be seen, attributed the dispersion of Scotchmen abroad, to redundancy of popula- tion at home ; but now I was forced to remodel my theory, or rather to build up a new one. I was first inclined to cling to a portion of my old hypothesis, and to consider the paucity of population in Scotland, as the effect of incessant emigration abroad. These mountains and moors, these lakes and bogs, these rugged rocks and roaring rivers, that attract foreigners to the Highlands, have some mysterious power, thought I, of expelling Highlanders from their native land. And there may be some truth in this hypothesis after all. The Swiss leaves his romantic moun- tains and valleys, his glittering glaciers and glassy lakes, to sojourn on the insipid plains of France, to inhale the malarious poison of Italy, to smoke cigars and eat sourcrout in Germany, to be stewed in vapour, or rolled in snow at St. Petersburg, to be drowned in the dykes or the gin of Holland ; or lastly, to die of nostalgia in the fogs of England. Does this proceed from the love of change, or the natural desire to better his condition ? Philosophers must decide. I confess I was not quite satis- fied with this solution, as applied to the Highlanders ; and therefore sought for some other. The Scotch, thought I, are a reading and a reflecting people. They have studied Malthus and Martineau, and are probably all Malthusians and Martineaus or, at all events, moral philosophers. They are so much imbued with the love of political economy, that they have abjured that vulgar impulse, mere physical DEPOPULATION. 163 love, and practise celibacy for the good of their country. The swarms of ragged brats and rosy bairns around the door of every cottage, and in the streets of every village, proved a damper to this hypothesis. One thing appeared certain, that the wildest parts of the Highlands seemed capable of supporting, with comfort, triple the number of inhabitants now existing there provided people could be found to cultivate the soil*. After much inquiry, deep cogitation, and some reading, I came, at length, to the conclusion that WORSTED STOCKINGS and COARSE CLOTH were the true causes of Highland depopulation. This requires some explanation. First, I shall quote a passage from a modern traveller, and a warm advocate of things as they are. " Since sheep have found their way to those pastures which black cattle and men once half occupied, this country is one wide and waste solitude. These its only tenants are invisible to an unpractised eye. Where three or four shepherds with their dogs can take charge of a dis- trict of twenty miles in extent, their huts occupying some secluded den on its outskirts, it is not surprising if we wander for days without seeing the trace of life ; solitary as if in the sands of Africa, or the immeasur- able ocean. A world still waiting for its inhabitants, conveys no images of melancholy ; but the solitude of ruins is the solitude of art, not of nature. It startles us with the idea of destruction it excites feelings of pain. In contemplating the untenanted habitation, the ruined and grass-grown walls, the cold and abandoned hearth, we are struck with images of misery and death because the scene was once life and mo- tion." The above and many other lugubrious meditations are applied by Dr. MacCulloch to Sutherland; but they are more or less applicable to the Highlands in general. Thus, then, it appears that the great land- owners, considering it derogatory to human nature to people their estates with biped serfs, have humanely and generously recommended their tenants to change the air to move towards the coast to become free * History, poetry, romance every thing convinces us that the glens of the Highlands were formerly more populous than at present. If Rhoderic Dhu's Henchman were to run with the utmost rapidity, for twenty-four hours, displaying the fiery cross, he would not now collect half the crowd of warriors that assembled in the Trosachs in one fore- noon. This, however, is on the authority of poetry which is little better than fiction, at the best. But we find that, when Haco invaded the peaceful shores of Loch Lomond, its banks were crowded with populous villages ! Let any one take a turn round the lake in the little steamer now, and he will find a " plentiful scarcity" of the said villages. No doubt that Glasgow and the towns have increased in population ; but not so the moral habits of the people ! M2 164 DEPOPULATION. and independent fishermen or, to go east, west, or south, and seek their fortunes while they (the proprietors of the soil) replace the said bipeds by quadrupeds of the most harmless description, whose fleeces are turned into worsted stockings and grey eloth, to the great benefit of the landlord and the quietude of the country. History has but too well recorded the wars, the massacres, and the feuds of Highlanders. The great proprietors have wisely put an effectual period to raids and on- slaughts, thus well deserving the high compliment which was once paid to Caesar" Ubi solitudinem facit, pacem vocat." In the agricultural districts, where men could not so easily be con- verted into sheep, another and ingenious remedy was found for the much-dreaded evils of redundant population. Ten farms are turned into one, by which the country is beautified, and the saleable produce is doubled, by reducing the number of those mouths which would other- wise devour it. But this measure is not adopted without due. and humane provision for the ejected cotters. "In the reforms of land, (says Dr. MacCulloch) for the purpose of crofting, on the new system, the ejected tenants have generally been provided with new farms (patches of land) on the sea shores;" " where, with the assistance of shell-fish caught at low-water, and some casual labour, they contrived to live through that portion of the summer which was past ; but how the winter was to be surmounted, it was both too easy and too painful to imagine." In a country where lakes cover more space than arable ground, it is equally just and ingenious to make a portion of the redundant population plough the deep with the keels of their boats, in search of herrings, while the rest are turning up the soil for the production of grain. The Highlanders have been accused of laziness. What remedy so efficacious as making starvation the penalty ? They have been taxed with a strong inclina- tion for Avhiskey. Nothing so good as sea water for curing this propen- sity unless that other one, emigration to lands where whiskey cannot be procured. They are represented as not only indolent and intempe- rate, but also as vicious and immoral. Adversity has been considered, by ancient philosophers, as favourable to virtue, and a curb on licentious- ness. But the wisdom of our ancestors is now too often called in ques- tion, and one of Dr. MacCulloch's ablest opponents has attacked the " new system," which has been found to work so beautifully in Ireland, with arguments like the following : " But when men are reduced to such a depth of wretchedness that there is no lower depth ; when they find themselves compelled to sub- sist for one half of the year upon potatoes and salt, and for the other upon shell-fish ; when, by the force of habit,' which deadens equally the sense of misery and the enjoyment of pleasure, men become recon- DEPOPULATION. 165 cilcd to a bare physical existence having no longer a stake in society, or any prospect of improving their condition, moral restraint, the main check to a vicious increase of the population, loses its power, and they fly to that gratification of which neither the laws of the country nor the operations of economists can deprive them. They marry and beget heirs to inherit no other portion than their parents' misery*." Thus then, since it appears that neither ejectments, nor shell-fish, nor salt and potatoes, nor poverty in every possible shape, can prevent Highlanders from marrying and getting children, it follows that Eng- land, America, our East and West India colonies the whole world, in fact, has the prospect of being blessed with the presence of Scotchmen, per omnia secula seculorum ! Amen ! FORT WILLIAM. Leaving Loch Lochy, the highest level of the Caledonian canal, we descend, by a series of locks, to Loch Eil, an arm of the sea, and a continuation of Loch Linhie, at Fort William. This descent is not inaptly styled NEPTUNE'S STAIRCASE. It would appear that his marine majesty, when tired of washing himself in the great Atlantic basin, ascends these stairs, to enjoy the luxury of vapour and shower- baths, which BIG BEN has always ready, at ten minutes notice, or less, in the neighbourhood of FORT WILLIAM. Eveiy one knows the answer which was given by the Highlander to an English traveller, who waited nine days at this place to see if the shower would cease. " What ! * It is positively asserted by this writer (Exposition, &c.~) that the population has rapidly increased since the ejectment of tenants and the consolidation of many small farms into a few large ones. He accounts for it by the reckless misery of the people, who marry and get children, because they have little else to do, and have lost all moral restraint ! This increase of the population appears to strangers inexplicable. It is, of course, in the t ow ns for the country population is unquestionably thinned by the new system. This is confirmed by the testimony of Col. Stewart, in hundreds of places throughout his work on the Highlands, one example of which will be sufficient. "We have lately seen thirty- one families, containing one hundred and fifteen persons, dispossessed of their lands, which were given to a neighbouring stock-grazier, to whom these people's possessions lay contiguous. Thus, as a matter of convenience to a man who has already a farm of nine miles in length one hundred and fifteen persons, who had never been a farthing in arrear of rent, were deprived of house and shelter, and sent pennyless into the world ! The number of similar instances are almost incredible !" Vol. i. p. 201. But I must quit this melancholy subject. Time will tell whether the increase of po- pulation in manufacturing towns, and its decrease in agricultural districts, will contri. bute to the morality, and consequently to the happiness of the people ! 166 A HIGHLAND BIVOUAC. does it always rain here ?" " Na, Sair, it sometimes snaws." In truth, we have here about three hundred soft days in the year. By the word " saft," or soft, the Scotchman means an even-down pour ; and it is what the Yankee would call " stony rain," the Cornishman " lashing," and what we vulgarly term " raining cats and dogs" in England. As the steamer could not descend Neptune's staircase quite so nimbly as Neptune and Amphitrite, the passengers were ordered on shore, to take up their quarters for the night at an hotel, placed here for their accommodations. After the usual scramble for tea and supper, between a large party from the steamer, and another from Glen Nevis and Lochaber, we settled down at last to enjoy our hot whiskey-toddy while Ben Nevis was pouring his " mountain-dew" in such copious streams against the roof and windows of the inn, that we sometimes feared the whole caravansera might be swept into the neighbouring canal. At a late hour I summoned Peggy to bring me my slippers, and shew me to bed. Peggy at length appeared, with a lantern, and my sac de nuit, but no slippers ! I was a little mortified to find that there was no bed for me in the hotel ; but was encouraged by the hostess, who assured me that Peggy would conduct me to an excellent bed in a house close by. Away we posted, in a deluge of rain, at midnight, and, what was worse, in a dark night to scramble over bank and brae through mud and mire across torrents and pools for a mile at least before we reached a regular HUT, with " clay-cold floor," and a bed as damp as a Ben-Nevis atmosphere could make it. In the course of this march to my bivouac, I measured my length about twenty times in the mud and water; but, fortunately, the " mountain-dew," and a " travelling constitution," aided by a Mackintosh's water-proof cloak, preserved me from rheumatism ; and, had it not been for a large ark of oatmeal in the room, to which the rats were " obnoxiously making approaches" in the night, I should have slept sound under blankets rendered impermeable by air, in consequence of a plentiful impregnation of water *. I was moving towards the steamer, long before the " daughter of the dawn " had scattered her rosy pearls over the valley of Glen Nevis. * In another place I have mentioned the curious fact, on the authority of Sir Walter Scott, that the Highlander, when exposed to the midnight snow, on the mountain, dips his plaid in water, and, wrapping himself up in this moist mantle, sleeps warm and comfortahle, till it gets dry, when he repeats the same process again ! Who will talk about the danger of sleeping in damp beds after this ? ORIGIN OF A HIGHLAND TOWN. 167 Honest BEN, himself, seemed to have taken an extra cup the preceding evening ; for his night-cap was still half-way over his face while the " droning music of the vocal nose" came down, in hoarse murmurs, from his lofty couch. No ill effects followed this night's adventure ; and the good nature of all the parties, both at the inn and the cottage, prevented the slightest feeling of discontent on my part. Accommoda- tions cannot be expected at inns in the Highlands, in the summer season, when shoals of tourists are in motion ; but it is justice to say that every reasonable exertion is made to accommodate the stranger, even in the wildest and poorest tracts of this interesting country. This acknowledgment deserves, on their part, some indulgence for any little sally, or even satire, on the difference between the CLARENDON, in Bond Street, and the ****, on the Caledonian Canal. FORT-WILLIAM, on the western extremity of this magnificent con- duit, is rather inferior to the CYNOSURE of the Highlands, on the eastern side. The following graphic sketch of the rise and progress of a Highland town, by a talented traveller, is little known to the gene- rality of English readers ; and therefore I shall make no apology for introducing it here. " In the case of country towns, where a Highland laird or a specu- lating society has not interfered, it is matter of analysis, for the fashionable science of political economy, to discover how one of them has grown, or by what cement it is united. There is a church ; that is the ordinary foundation. Where there is a church, there must be a parson, a clerk, a sexton, and a midwife. Thus we account for four houses. An inn is required on the road. This produces a smith, a saddler, a butcher, and a brewer. The parson, the clerk, the sexton, the midwife, the butcher, the smith, the saddler, and the brewer, re- quire a baker, a tailor, a shoemaker, and a carpenter. They soon learn to eat plum-pudding ; and a grocer follows. The grocer's wife and parson's wife contend for superiority in dress ; whence flows a milliner, and, with the milliner, a mantua-maker. A barber is introduced to curl the parson's wig, and to shave the smith on Saturday nights ; and a stationer to furnish the ladies with paper for their sentimental cor- respondences : an exciseman is sent to guage the casks, and a school- master discovers that the ladies cannot spell. A hatter, a hosier, and a linen-draper follow by degrees ; and as children are born, they begin to cry out for rattles and gingerbread. The parson becomes idle and gouty, and gets a curate, and the curate gets twenty children and a wife ; and thus it becomes necessary to have more shoemakers, and tailors, and grocers. In the mean time, a neighbouring apothecary, hearing with indignation that there is a community living without 168 GLENROY. PARALLEL ROADS. physic, places three blue bottles in a window; when, on a sudden, the parson, the butcher, the innkeeper, the grocer's wife, and the parson's wife, become bilious and nervous, and their children get water in the head, teeth, and convulsions. They are bled and blistered, till a physi- cian finds it convenient to settle : the inhabitants become worse and worse every day, and an undertaker is established. The butcher having called the tailor prick -louse, over a pot of ale, Snip, to prove his man- hood, knocks him down with the goose. Upon this plea, an action for assault is brought at the next sessions. The attorney sends his clerk over to take depositions and collect evidence : the clerk, finding a good opening, sets all the people by the ears, becomes a pettifogging attorney, and peace flies the village for ever. But the village becomes a town, acquires a bank, and a coterie of old maids ; and should it have existed in happier days, might have gained a corporation, a mayor, a mace, a quarter-sessions of its own, a county assembly, the assizes, and the gallows." But the steam is on, and we are ploughing Loch Eil, under the shadow of Ben Nevis, who, awaking from his slumbers, has doffed his night-cap, and shewn his countenance, to wish us a prosperous voyage. The scenery surrounding Loch Eil and Loch Linhie is by far the best on the run from Inverness to Oban. A vast sea of mountains encompasses us on every side, with picturesque landscapes on the shores of the lochs which we are navigating. We pass under the towers of Dunstaffnage, and once more enter the port of OBAN. PARALLEL ROADS. GLENROY. A short excursion of a few miles from Fort William, into Lochaber, brings us to one of the wonders of the Highlands the PARALLEL ROADS sweeping round the valley of Glenroy midway between the streamlet in the depth of the vale, and the summits of the enclosing arid almost perpendicular hills. Three of these terraces or roads encircle the glen, with interspaces of some hundred feet ; but each road perfectly parallel 'with itself and with the horizon, all round the valley. The inhabitants maintain that these were roads formed by human hands, for the accom- modation of their kings to hunt deer, and other game. It is hardly necessary, at this time, to combat such an opinion, since it is very evident that the roads, as they are called, were formed by the action of the waters on their banks, when Glenroy was a lake, instead of a valley. If the ledge of rocks at the Connal ferry were swept away, Loch Etive would sink twenty or thirty feet below its present level, and GLENROY. PARALLEL ROADS. 169 parallel roads would be found all round Glen Etive, to add another miracle to those with which Dr. MacCulloch has already invested it. LOCH LEVEN, I understand, has heen lowered a little by drainage, and the same phenomenon presents itself on its banks. It will hardly be maintained that these last were royal roads, constructed for the unfortu- nate Queen Mary, to take the exercise of hunting, during her captivity on an island in that lake ! Captain Hall discovered similar parallel roads round a valley of South America, that had been changed from a lake to a glen by the discharge of its waters. Colonel Stewart, of whom I have made honorable mention in this tour, appears to side with * the arguments adduced by the anti-geological party, in favour of the artificial construction of the parallel roads in Glenroy. I am rather surprised at this ; for their arguments are far from being either specious or tenable. They object to the geologists that it is not probable that the water (if it did exist in Glenroy) should remain so perfectly sta- tionary, after the first declension, as to form a second parallel, of the same breadth and formation as the first or that the second declension should be so regular in time, and the water so equal in its action, as to form a third terrace, of form and breadth perfectly similar to the two others. Before answering these objections, I should like to ask the anti-geologists, what possible purpose could the ancient Highlanders have in view, when they formed three parallel roads round a rocky valley, all within a few hundred feet of each other, and at an expense of human labour that would, at the present day, and with Mr. Mac- Adam as the highway-man, cost half a million of money ? Truly, the exchequers of these Highland kings must have been PRODIGIOUS ! But these GLEN-ROYALS seem to think that the action of the waters on the shores of a lake, in constructing parallel roads, must be propor- tionate to the length of time the waters remained at the same level. This is quite an error. A parallel road, as it is called, would be formed by the action of the waters on the shores of a lake, as completely in one hundred as in one hundred thousand years. This argument is, therefore, of no avail. The Highlanders also urge the impossibility of water having ever been in Glenroy, " without an improbable convulsion of nature, to open a way for its exit." Why, every glen in the Highlands proves reiterated convulsions of nature, while many of the highest mountains of the earth shew proofs of having been under water at some remote period ! What difficulty, therefore, is there in supposing, what indeed is mani fest, that many valleys of Scotland, and other countries, were once lakes, that had become dry by the evacuation of their waters and that at no very remote period of time ? 170 OBAN TO INVERARY. But however constructed, whether by the hand of man or of Nature, the parallel roads of Glenroy are worth a day's excursion, even at the risk of a sprinkling from the clouds that hover round the lofty head of BEN NEVIS. OBAN TO INVERARY. The scenery between Oban and Inverary, by Port Sonachan, is not so fine as by Loch Awe head and Glenorchy. Yet, from Taynuilt, where the two roads separate, there are some magnificent views of Ben Cruachan, and various other mountains. We there diverge to the right, and strike away for Loch Awe, through a picturesque country, well wooded and watered, till we cross the ferry, when we again ascend Burke's Mountain, and wind down to Inverary. Johnson and Boswell crossed this mountain on their way back from the Hebrides, without taking the least notice of the magnificent view from its summit. Johnson, indeed, seems to have had as bad an eye for scenery as an ear for music and that was bad enough; for he informs us he could just distinguish the sound of a drum from the notes of a bugle ! The road from Oban to Inverary, by Port Sonachan, appears to have produced a species of music, however, that pleased the ear of the lexicographer. " The wind was loud, the rain was heavy; and the whistling of the blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of the cataracts, and the roar of the torrents, made a nobler chorus of the rough music of Nature than it had ever been my chance to hear before." On this journey, which occupied about nine or ten hours, we were fortunate enough to have the stage-coach crowded, inside and out, with highly intelligent and amusing characters, that would have rendered a passage across the burning sands of the desert agreeable. We were doubly fortunate, too, in having a pro temp, coachman, who was not only a wag and a wit, but a bit of a lawyer into the bargain ! He had so much dry humour about him, that he was fain to stop every two or three miles, ostensibly to give the horses a little wind and water, but really, to " moisten his own clay," as became apparent in the sequel. Between the hero of the whip and a British tar, (a half-pay officer,) who was a passenger, a brisk fire of national raillery was kept up, during a great part of the journey, and with much spirit on both sides, to the great amusement of the rest of the travellers. Two or three of these intellectual broadsides may not be unworthy of record here. At a little public-house, on the ascent of a hill, JEHU stopped, as usual, to give NATIONAL DIALOGUE. Ill the horses a mouthful of water, and take a glass of Glenlivet himself, which he always did in the interior of the Locanda. As he was mount- ing the box, the sailor accosted him thus : " I say, shipmate, you take care to ' freshen the hawse ' pretty often on this road." " I do," said the coachman ; " it is necessary 7 to refresh the horses frequently, else they would never drag such a cargo of live and dead lumber over these mountains." " Oho '." rejoined the TAR, " but why do you * splice the main brace' every time you water the horses?" "I deny the fact," replied the coachman ; " the braces and traces are all as good as new, and require no splicing." " I see," said the sailor, " that you are not inclined to understand what I mean by ' splicing the main brace.' Perhaps you can tell me why you * freshen the nip ' yourself, whenever you wet the throats of the cattle ?" Donald, who either did not understand, or chose not to understand, the first two phrases of the sailor, appeared to take the hint in the third instance, as evinced by a change in the colour of his nose, from crimson to purple, while he bit his lip, and whipped the horses unmercifully. But a Scotchman has always wit, or at least wisdom in his anger ; and JEHU preserved silence for ten or fifteen minutes. He then resumed : " Pray, Sir, have you not a HABEAS CORPUS law in England?" "I know very little of the law," replied the tar, " as the articles of war and the naval instructions are law enough for sailors; but I have heard of the HABEAS CORPUS, in troublesome times." " Then," said Donald, (who was, as I mentioned before, a bit of a lawyer,) " I wish your Whig ministers would suspend the Habeas Corpus every summer, and con- fine all fools at home during the travelling months." This cutting sarcasm raised a laugh at the expense of the sailor; but the latter was neither offended nor taken aback by the remark, though it was little short of a personal affront. " By my faith, messmate," rejoined the Tar, " the ministers need not extend the suspension of the Habeas Corpus to Scotland, since none but fools will stay there, if they can raise the means of removing elsewhere. The very act of crossing the Tweed, southward, will prove that they are anything but fools." This turned the laugh in favour of the Tar ; but he pursued his point a step farther. " And let me tell you, shipmate, that if an embargo were laid on all English fools in the summer season, the Inverary coach would often go as empty to Port Sonachan as the stomach of its driver." A slight glance at the passengers showed that the British tar had some rea- son for this last observation, since there were not more than two Scotch names on the way-bill. The Highlander felt the force of this " argu- mentum ad hominem," and probably recollected that we were approach- ing Inverary, where his perquisites were to be collected. He therefore 172 END OF THE COLLOQUY. changed the subject a little. " Ah, weel !" said he, " we Highlanders had something to eat and to drink too, long before the Inverary coach was started, or Fingal's Cave began to attract so many of your countrymen to the islands yonder. I have heard our old folks say that, lang syne, a great shooting party softie forty thousand or more of you southrons, came down here one summer, with the. king of England, and most of his great officers of state, just to have a little sport among these mountains, and that three-fourths of them took such a liking to the land, that they never went back again to merry old England. So you see there were fools on both sides of the Tweed before the nineteenth century." " That is true, and well put," rejoined the seaman. " My countrymen did not long enjoy the chase, however, among your moun- tains, the air of Bannockbum not agreeing with their constitutions. But you had a Bruce for your king and commander at that time ; and if you had always had such princes and generals, I doubt whether the white cross would ever have been unfurled on the field of Culloden, or the red-coats have penetrated farther among the Grampian hills than their predecessors the Romans. But those days of warfare, pillage, and conquest, are now happily at an end; and you must acknowledge, Mr. Donald, that the English come to Scotland to spend money, while the Scotch go to England to make it." " If 1 admitted your position,'' said Donald, " I fancy it would only amount to this : that the Eng- lish have more wealth, and the Scotch more wisdom in their move- ments." " I am not quite sure of that,'' said the Briton. " There is no greater proof of wisdom than a wish to acquire useful knowledge. And, as practical economy is a favourite study of these times, I know not a better school of instruction than Scotland. Leaving out of the question the pleasure of seeing your wild mountains and romantic glens, we return to England much better acquainted with the value of a shil- ling, than when we left our own country ; and this knowledge is worth a journey to Sky or Caithness at any time." The sun had now descended behind the mountains of Mull the woods of Inverary were darkening the scene the roads were rather steep and the larboard lamp of the stage refused to illumine that side of the defile. It is probable, too, that the coachman began to think the conversation had taken a somewhat unlucky turn towards economy, when we were within a couple of miles of our destination. Be this as it may, a lee lurch, which landed half the outside passengers on the top of the park wall, spilled the remainder in various directions, and left the coach at an angle of forty-five degrees, with one wheel in the ditch, and the other on the road, changed suddenly the national conversation into individual conservation! We had reason, once more, to bless the HIGHLAND TACTICS. 173 Duke of Argyle, for building a wall along the road, to prop the Inverary coach, in case of being overtaken by the shades of night, when a little top-heavy or when the " mountain-dew " had rendered the road rather slippery, and objects liable to " loom," or appear double in the mist. We all got safe to Inverary ; where a hot supper and a bowl of toddy diffused such an exhilarating influence through every heart, followed by such a restorative opiate to the senses, during seven hours of uninter- rupted sleep, as some MONARCHS might cheaply purchase at the expense of their crowns and millions of SUBJECTS, by the sacrifice of their wealth or ambition ! INVERARY TO LOCH LOMOND. I never could have believed that one Scotchman would wrong I had almost said defraud another, had I not breakfasted at the pretty little inn of Cairn-Dow, on the edge of Loch Fine. No sooner had a few words passed between the landlady and the postillion, than the former opened such a torrent of abuse upon the latter, as brought us out in consternation from the breakfast-room, though the herrings were smoking on the table, and the water hissing in the urn. The cause was easily explained. The innkeeper at Inverary (I shall mention no names) told us there were no horses on the road to Tarbet, and there- fore we must rest his jades an hour at Cairn-Dow, and then proceed onwards. He took care, meantime, to make us pay the whole fare before we started. Now, there are horses and cars at Cairn-DoAV ; but the innkeepers of Inverary and Tarbet send on their tired horses the whole way, assuring travellers that there are no relays between the two places ! The hostess said she was tired of appealing to the justice or generosity of her countrymen, and would now appeal to the public. Who would expect to find a SIR GILES OVERREACH at each extre- mity of a Highland glen, combining to crush a poor woman living mid- way between their domains ! The hostess of Cairn -Dow has not appealed in vain. The obscure traveller to whom she poured out her complaints, and from whom she expected little redress, will wring reluctant justice from her oppressors, by exposing their mercenary meanness to every future tourist. From Cairn-Dow, we leave the lake, and plunge away into the narrow Glen Kinglas, the emblem and seat of solitude. No human figure, hut, or habitation, meets the eye for many miles no sound of man, beast, or bird, vibrates on the ear. There may there must be sheep on the 174 EMIGRATION. impending mountains ; and a solitary shepherd, here and there tending his flocks ; but they are indistinguishable from the grey rocks and stones scattered along the steeps. The eagle may scream from its eyrie, the herdsman may whistle, the sheep may bleat, or the dog may yelp ; but the sounds are lost in multiplied echoes among the crags, or absorbed by the surrounding cliffs. On standing and listening attentively, how- ever, a kind of faint murmur is heard ; but it is difficult to say whether or not it is the breeze sweeping along the summits of the peaks. It is produced, no doubt, by the innumerable rills trickling down the deep furrows of the mountain's brow ; and which, in the dry season, are all concealed from our sight. These silver sounds dissolve, as it were, in the tranquil atmosphere, blending with the silence, and harmonizing with the solitude of the scene, so as to be indistinguishable, except by the most attentive ear. The diminution of fern and heather, with the increase of grass on the precipitous flanks of the hills and mountains, indicates unerringly the substitution of an instinctive for a rational population of profitable animals for productive, but unprofitable men*! It is, perhaps, need- less to speculate on this change of inhabitants in the Highland glens. The immediate effects must be misery to a few the ultimate conse- quences may be happiness to many. The departure of emigrants from the land of their forefathers to seek other and richer soils beyond the Atlantic, affords fine subjects for the poet, wherewith he may harrow up the feelings, and excite the sympathies of those readers whose hearts are glowing with philanthropy, but whose heads are not overburthened with philosophy. I remember sitting for half an hour on a jutting crag overhanging the harbour of Tobermorey, listening to the merry pibroch and the boisterous dance, on board a vessel preparing to sail for America, and laden with emigrants from the Highland glens. If in- ward joy can be estimated by external gestures, happiness (or the anti- cipation of happiness) reigned triumphant among the self-expatriated passengers ! The portraits which Goldsmith and others have drawn of the wretched feelings experienced by emigrants on departing from the land of their nativity, are all fictions of the poet's fancy. I appeal to the memory of every individual who has migrated to distant climes in pursuit of those comforts which were denied at home, whether or not the heart was buoyed up with ardent hope, and every hour seemed an age, while crossing the pathless deep, to the land of promise, on the * Sheep check the growth of fern and heather, by browsing and treading on these vegetable characteristics of the Highland mountains. Soft and fine grass is, therefore, encouraged and promoted by the very animals that feed on it. LOCO-MIGRATION. 175 hanks of the Niagara, the Delaware, or the Mississippi ? In age, in- deed, where ease is the chief, almost the only, enjoyment and where sad experience has demonstrated the " vanity of human wishes," regret, and that of a poignant character, must naturally he felt, on quitting the hallowed seats of our juvenile days and pleasures ; but in youth, the ardent imagination glows, and has always glowed, with the prospect of new scenes and adventures 011 a foreign shore. The spirit of migration must have been infused into man at his first creation. The human race could not have existed, even for a short time, without the exercise of this primeval impulse ; and there is not, at this moment, a nation or an individual on the whole surface of the globe, that is not an emigrant, or the descendant of emigrants from other, and more or less remote lands ! But there are other kinds of migration besides that of removing to foreign countries. One of these may be designated LOCO-MIGRATION. It is maintained by some writers, and especially by MacCulloch, that the extension of flock-feeding, though it has changed the residences, has not diminished, but rather increased, the population of the High- lands. This is possible. The stranger's attention is not arrested by the towns and villages on the shores, as he knows not how long they may have existed ; but he is struck with the absence of man, and 4he substi- tution of sheep in the glens ! The great question, however, is not whether the population has increased or decreased by the modern policy, but whether the people have been rendered better or happier ? It will be marvellous if the change from agriculture to commerce (of which fishing is a branch) shall improve the moral condition of man- kind ! It is acknowledged, on all sides, that the Highland peasantry are very poor and that, sterile as is the land, it is far from being every where cultivated to the highest pitch of its capacity, for want of capital. But Highland poverty is not attended by its usual accompaniment, or consequence, in other countries depravity of the moral qualities. In England, and in some other places, poverty is too intimately inter- mingled with luxury and wealth, not to generate envy, hatred, and malice towards the upper classes while it fosters discontent, and sows the seeds of rebellion towards the government. In the Highlands, the people are too much on a par, and have too few humiliating compari- sons before their eyes, to render their own condition either distressing or degrading. What has been said of other Alpine peasants, may be said of the Gaelic. The Highlander sees few palaces rearing their heads to contrast with his own humble dwelling. His lot is the lot of all. If he has coarse fare, coarse clothing, a sordid habitation, and ill- requited toils, he is not tortured by the sight of luxury, idleness, pro- 176 HIGHLAND CHARACTER. fligacy, and pride, at every step he takes. The absence of discontent is nearly tantamount to contentment. Comparison is the bane of happi- ness in highly-civilized society. If the shopkeeper and his wife, who eat and drink of the best who dress well, and lie on beds of clown, are still burning with jealousy at the equipages and retinue of the gentry, what must be the feelings of the mechanics and labourers, when they look up through the long vista of real or fancied enjoyments and com- forts possessed by those above them ? Among these mountains, things are very different. " Poor, therefore, as the unfortunate Highlander may sometimes be, he is not deserted by his proper pride, by his manly feelings, nor by the many other virtues by which he is characterized. Difficult as it may generally be to rouse his industry by ordinary inducements, yet to avoid charity, or to maintain his parents and dependents, he will undergo any privations, and exert his utmost energy. This would, in itself, atone for all his national defects ; which, after all the anger that is excited by the mention of them, are not often really important. It is this rectitude of mind also, added to his habitual submission and con- tentedness under slender accommodations, that makes him bear, without complaint, the misfortunes which may be his lot. It is often said, that it is dangerous to tamper with the stomach of the people. Judging by the outrageous clamours of " the English poor," when deprived of their wheaten bread and their porter, their beef and their tea, the maxim is as true as the proofs of it are disgusting. Here, it fails ; nor can any thing excite more surprise in a stranger, than the patience with which occasional, as well as habitual want, is borne by the Highlanders. It is far from unusual for them to decline receiving, not only common charity, but even parochial relief. It is known to many, not only that this has been refused when offered, but that another object has been indicated, by the person himself, as more deserving : that a -portion of what had been accepted has been returned, when the sufferer considered that he had overcome the most pressing part of his difficulties. If this be a digression from the main subject, I can only wish for opportunities of making many more of the same nature. Could such a feeling be excited in England, could every Englishman become, in this respect, a Highlander, more would be done for the welfare and the peace of the nation, than by all the laws and all the systems that ever were promul- gated." The author of the foregoing passage is vehemently declaimed against by Scotch writers, as giving an unfavourable view of the Highlanders ! * MacCulIoch, vol. iv., p. 127. HIGHLAND CHARACTER. 177 What would you have, gentlemen ? You will, in time, have a very dif- ferent portrait. Every steamer that ploughs the Firth and the Clyde the Crinan and the Caledonian canal will melt down a portion of Highland character, and tend to amalgamate Celt with Sassenach. The instance which I have already noticed, of a Highland tinker being employed in constructing a kaleidoscope, soon after its exhibition in London, is a sufficient example of the rapid transmission of literature, science, and art, from the banks of the Thames to those of the Tay. As population increases with commerce and manufactures, in the creeks and harbours of the Highlands and islands, a learned and en- lightened pauperism will grow up also and will soon demand elee- mosynary establishments. The antiquated ties by which the peasant felt himself bound to support his poor relations in the glens, will present little cohesion in the sea-ports and " the POOR-LAWS of suicidal England," (as MacCulloch expresses it,) will, in spite of the doctor's prophecies, penetrate to Oban and Tobermorey to Portree and Ding- wall. Nor can it possibly be otherwise. The transition from agricul- ture to manufacture from rural to civic life not only tends to dissolve the ties above-mentioned, but takes away the power of indulging those feelings on which they are founded, even if the feelings themselves remained unimpaired. The maintenance of an aged parent or decrepit relation, in the glens or mountains, is a very different thing from the same act of humanity or charity in a sea-port or manufacturing town. In the former locality, it is scarcely an incumbrance in the latter, for obvious reasons, it is a serious tax, which few can pay ! But the progressive preponderance of manufacture and commerce over agricultural and pastoral pursuits, whatever may be the attendant evils, is inevitable and for this simple reason, that the latter are limited to the soil which we possess ; whereas the former are almost illimitable, in the present state of the world. The increase of popula- tion must have vent ; and where employment presents itself, there will human industry rush to gain bread. But whether the present High- land experiment of giving an artificial check to agriculture, in favour of pasturage, thereby forcing additional numbers into manufacture, will be productive of good or evil, I must leave to the consideration of Miss Martineau, and the political economists. The following extract from Colonel Stewart will convey some idea of the effects of this transition. " This change appears in the character and condition of the High- landers, and is indicated, not only in their manners and persons, but in the very aspect of their country. It has reduced to a state of nature lands that had long been subjected to the plough, and which had afforded the means of support to an useful, happy, and contented popu- N 17 HIGHLAND CHAHACTfeft. lation. It has converted whole glens and districts, once the abodes of a vigorous and independent race of men, into scenes of desolation. It has torn up families which seemed rooted like Alpine plants, in the soil of their elevated region, and which, from their habits and principles, appeared to be its original possessors, as well as its natural occupiers and forced them thence, penniless and unskilful, to seek a refuge in manufacturing towns, or betake themselves to the wilds of a far-distant land. The spirit of speculation has invaded those mountains which no foreign enemy could penetrate, and expelled a brave people whom no warlike intruder could subdue." Vol. i.,p. 117. A striking feature in the revolutionized Highlander is, his compa- rative indifference towards chiefs and landlords. And no wonder ! When his lands are put up to the highest bidder, (who very frequently becomes a bankrupt in the end,) there can be no great sympathy between lord and man. The evil is extending; and even the tenants of kind and patriotic landlords are becoming affected by the gloom and despondency of those who complain of harsher treatment. " The natural enthusiasm of the Highland character has, in many instances, been converted into gloomy and morose fanaticism. Theo- logical disputes, of interminable duration, now occupy much-of the time formerly devoted to poetical recitals, and social meetings. These cir- cumstances have blunted their romantic feelings, and lessened their taste for works of imagination. Their taste for music, dancing, and all kinds of amusements, has been chilled. Their evening meetings, when they do occur, are too frequently exasperated by political and religious discussions, or complaints against their superiors. Even the aspect of the Highlander, his air and his carriage, have undergone a marked change. Guided by the sublime and simple truths of Christianity, the Highlanders were strangers to the very existence of sects that have branched off from the national church. In this respect, their charac- ters and habits have undergone a considerable change since they began to be visited by itinerant missionaries, and since the gloom spread over their minds has tended to depress their spirit. I fear that some of the new teachers think more of implicit faith in their own doctrines than of good works in their disciples and that morals are, in general, left to the teaching and control of the laws." Ib. But the most curious and important piece of information produced by Colonel Stewart is this that the Highlanders practised the doctrines of Malthus for centuries before that political economist was born. " A great check to population was found in those institutions and habits which, except in the retaliation of wrongs, and spoliation of cattle, served all the purposes for which laws are now enforced. While HIGHLAND CHARACTER. 179 the country was portioned out amongst numerous tenants, none of their sons were allowed to marry, till they had obtained a house , a farm, or some certain pro sped of settlement, unless, perhaps, in the case of a son who was expected to succeed his father. Cottagers and tradesmen were also discouraged from marrying, till they had a house, and means of providing for a family. These customs are now changed. The system of throwing whole tracts of country into one farm, and the practice of letting lands to the highest bidder, occasions gloomy prospects, and the most fearful uncertainty of tenure. Yet, as if in despite of Malthus, these discouragements, instead of checking population, have removed the restraint which the prudent foresight of a sagacious peasantry had formerly imposed on early marriages. Having now no sure prospect of a permanent settlement, they marry whenever inclination prompts them. The propriety of marrying when young, they defend on this principle, that their children may rise up around them, while they are in the vigour of life, and ahle to provide for their maintenance ; and that they may thus insure support in their own old age, for no High- lander can ever forego the hope that, while he has children able to sup- port him, he will never be allowed to want." Vol. i. p. 85. This is a very ingenious doctrine, and probably the true one. In England, where children will see their parents go to the workhouse, with perfect nonchalance, the above doctrine would not be understood; and hence Malthus and Martineau have written on the wrong -side of the Tweed. As I observed before, there will be an end of these ties, after the manufacturing or littoral population shall have advanced a few grades in civilization, and learnt to look with contempt on the old- fashioned filio-paternal bonds between parent and progeny ! When poor-laws come into operation, too, as in England, the reasons for early marriage will be different, though the bad consequences will be the same. In happy England, the poor-laws offer a double premium to early marriage without prospect of independence. In the first place, every pauper receives relief in proportion to the number of children he can produce: in the second place, the married pauper obtains work from the farmers, in preference to the single one ! Here, then, is the double premium for imprudent (it should rather be called prudent) marriages and redundant population ! ! M 2 180 GLENCROK. GLENCROE. From Glenkinglass we make a bend to the right, and enter Glencroe a valley very frequently confounded with Glencoe though as inferior to the latter as a satyr is to Hyperion. The valley of Glencroe is a hill at least the centre of it. The famous pass of " REST AND BE THANK- FUL," rises in the middle, some six or seven hundred feet above the general level of the glen, though still in a valley, as respects the sur- rounding scenery. A very good idea may be formed of Glencroe and "REST AND BE THANKFUL," by supposing that the road from Somers Town to Hendon was flanked on each side by craggy, barren, and precipitous mountains. The highest point of Hampstead would then be " REST AND BE THANKFUL," and nearly as high as the renowned pass in the Highlands. From this spot, however, the scenery is wild and interest- ing. With the exception of a small strip of ground on the right of the road in the hollow, with a few cots and cattle, all is silence and solitude. The COBLER seems to be the sole inhabitant of this dreary tract ! Upon the authority of MacCulloch, we are bound to find a " striking resemblance " between the craggy summit of a mountain, and a cobler working at his last. I tried, in various directions, to find out the similitude, but without success. It is as much like a cobler as it is like a crocodile, or a cow, or a crab. After puzzling my imagina- tion for half an hour, I suddenly stumbled on the truth it is the cobler that is like a rock, not the rock like a cobler ! But I would not be understood as denying all resemblance between the rock in question and a cobler, for the following reasons. In the first place, it appears that the heirs of the Campbells, in this country, were obliged to mount the precipice, before they could inherit the pro- perty of their forefathers. In the second place, we find that Doctor MacCulloch, without any hope of inheritance, had the temerity or curiosity to scale this gigantic pinnacle, at the hazard of his life, with hammer in hand and satchel on back and, what was far worse, with a pair of seven-league-boots on his nether limbs ! ! " Thus clambering, and thus moralizing, I reached the summit of the ridge, and found myself astride on this rocky saddle, with one foot in Loch Long, and the other in Glencroe." Such being the case, the story of the " Seven- league-boots " is no longer a fable. At such an interesting period, the summit of the crag may very possibly have presented some similitude to a cobler. This airy pinnacle, we are informed by the same autho- rity, is as sharp as the edge of a razor another source of the sublime GLENCIIOE. loJ and the dangerous. " I was surprised to find the summit so acute. It was the bridge of Al Sirat the very razor's blade over which the faithful are to walk into Paradise." Dr. M. justly observes, that " there is a pride and a pleasure in surmounting difficulties, even when there is no one present to applaud." Perched on this giddy pyramid of Nature, far above the storm's career, the celebrated geologist and philosopher might have naturally compared himself to the giant genius of the Andes, when that creation of the poet's fancy seats himself on the highest peak of Chimborazzo, and " With meteor standard to the winds unfurl'd, Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world." Dr. M. assures us that, from the Cobler, the scene is magnificent. He could contemplate it without anxiety, or fear of slipping off the narrow path to Paradise. The cliffs themselves, he observes, form a set of objects, at once sublime and picturesque especially the square mass, at the western extremity, which rises, in lofty magnificence, more than two hundred feet perpendicular, like a gigantic tower rooted on the mountain's brow. Politely declining the invitation to " rest and be thankful," we passed through Glencroe descended on Loch Long, at Arroquhar swept round the head of the lake, amidst fine scenery and crossed the neck of land that separates Loch Long from Loch Lomond over which HACO'S sailors carried their ships on their shoulders, in days of yore * ! Embarking once more in the little steamer, we whisk round Loch Lomond, striking up Diana Vernon's song while passing Rob Roy's cave a salutation which must be very gratifying to the old LIFTER, if his spirit be still wandering among these mountains and, debarking on the eastern bank of this romantic lake, refresh ourselves with salmon, whiskey, and sound sleep, preparatory to the ascent of Old BEN. * In the course of a preceding tour, we crossed from Inverary to the opposite side of Loch Fine, in a daily passage-boat, and then made our way to Loch Goyle-head, through HELL VALLEY, (a veritable VALLEE D'ENFER,) which is very little inferior to Glencroe in some respects it is superior. To those who have a day to spare at Tnverary or to those who are anxious to make a speedy march from Inverary to Glasgow I would recommend this route. The scenery of Hell Valley is as wild as Glencroe, and it illus- trates the depopulating system of the Highlands in the most exquisite manner. Not a human being is seen in this romantic valley ; though many vestiges of its former inha- bitants are still suffered to remain on each side of the road ! That inimitable actor, YATES, (who can imitate all others,) might have placed the scene of his " Deserted Village" in HELL VALLEY, to advantage! And is there a LADY on the stage, who could more forcibly pourtray the pangs of human nature, in virtuous adversity, than Mrs. Yates? Not one. 182 BEN-LOMOND. BEN-LOMOND. The rains that fertilize England and other countries, only tend to sterilize poor old Scotland ! The Atlantic Ocean has waged eternal war against the Highland mountains, and almost daily pours a shower of shot and shells, of grape and canister on their devoted heads. But the warrior of the western wave has sturdy combatants to deal with. It is true that he has shot away the cap and feathers from the head of many a mountain chief; but their bald and rugged scalps may defy the Atlantic bombardment for a hundred centuries to come ! These High- land guerrillas stand as firm as a Macedonian phalanx, and roll back the tide of war on their aggressor, who renews the combat, from day to day, with inexhaustible energy. Vulcan appears to have been alarmed, at some remote period, and to have inteqjosed a prodigious host of basaltic peace-makers, or Grey police, between the combatants ; but without success. Many of the interponents, indeed, have fallen in these Highland and Hebridean forays, as Staffa, Sky, and Egg, can testify ; but still the elemental war continues, and many a Sassenach wanderer, besides myself, has had cause to lament the conflicts between these anta- gonising powers ! Bird's-eye views in the Highlands are not those to which we may look with much anticipation of pleasure. From the summit of Ben-Nevis, Ben-Lawers, Ben-Cruachan, or Ben-Lomond, the eye wanders over a sea of mountains, and a multitude of lakes ; but monotony is predomi- nant throughout. The lakes may present a variety of shapes, and the mountains a diversity of altitude ; but the haze of the air and the heath of the earth produce a dulness of uniformity that ends in something of disappointment. The prospect is expansive but the view is indistinct. It is vain it is injudicious, to compare mountain scenery in the High- lands with the same in Switzerland or Italy. In Scotland, we have not the dazzling snows, the glittering glaciers, the stupendous precipices, the tropical verdure, the beautiful villages, the exquisite cultivation, the pellucid atmosphere, and the glorious suns of the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Apennines. The views of the Jura, the Righi, the Col de Balme, or Vesuvius, are not to be expected from the Caledonian moun- tains. But these last have a character of their own not indeed of that " cold sublimity " appertaining to the high Alps, or of that burning splendor inherent in Apennine scenery but of a solemn, sombre, and I had almost said sullen cast, peculiar to themselves, and to themselves alone. BEX-LOMOND. 183 The view from Ben-Lomond commands a greater variety, though not a greater extent of scenery, than Cruachan, Lawers, or even Ben- Nevis. A brisk gale blew from the westward the sun shone bright the white clouds sailed rapidly along, veiling and unveiling the summits of the mountains, and chequering with their shadows the valleys and the plains between. " Shade follows shade, as laughing zephyrs drive, And all the chequered land>cape seems alive." EASTWARD, the eye wanders over cultivated plains, and classic vales, castellated rocks, winding rivers, and wealthy towns, till it rests, at the utmost verge of the horizon, on the intellectual city the Athens of the North. WESTWARD, we behold a succession of lakes and woods, of mountains and valleys, of promontories and precipices, of harbours and ships, of islands and oceans. SOUTHWARD, Glasgow and the Clyde darken the atmosphere with their thousand furnaces. We see the wreaths of smoke which they are constantly belching forth ; and we almost hear the clanking of their engines, and the murmur of their machinery. NORTHWARD, we behold a vast and tumultuous sea of mountains and mists, where the billows often appear towering above the clouds, and the clouds rolling down into the abysses of the waves. All is a moving chaos, conveying some idea of the primordial elements, when about to be separated into air, earth, and ocean *. For an amplification, usque ad nauseam, of these brief characteristics, see the descriptions of sentimental and picturesque tourists, passim ! There is one comfort for travellers, that they may ride to very near the summit of Ben-Lomond, with more ease than to the summit of Skiddaw though with less chance of clear weather, when they get there. But the journey is never without profit. The exercise, the mountain air, the exhilaration of spirits, and the acquisition of health, are ample equivalents for any disappointment as to prospect from the mountain's airy brow. * It is curious that the ancient Greek navigator, Pytheas, when describing ULTIMA THULE, (now considered to be the Shetland isles,) asserts that " the climate of these northern regions is neither earth, air, nor sea, but a chaotic confusion of these three elements." From this passage, I infer that Pytheas had actually ascended Ben-Nevis or Ben-Lomond, in a Highland mist. Italian, French, and American tourists make nearly the same observation, without knowing that they were anticipated, by a Grecian tourist, two thousand years ago ! There is nothing new under the suu ! 184 GLASGOW. GLASGOW. I regret exceedingly that I am obliged to pass over this fine and flourishing city, with little more than the briefest notice, though it deserves half a volume ! If I am asked, why ? I really cannot tell. We are unable to explain why an ordinary or even an ugly countenance will sometimes attract our attention in the street, or in an assembly, while fifty beautiful faces are passed unnoticed. The narrow, steep, and somewhat malodorous wynds of AULD REEKIE, excited far more vivid trains of thought in my mind, than the spacious squares and mag- nificent streets of the New Town. I only state the fact philosophers must explain the cause. Glasgow appears to have been accidentally built over one of Pluto's most fashionable DIVANS or of Vulcan's most extensive smitheries; for, at each second of time, we see towering columns, or wreathing volumes of the densest smoke, belched forth from a thousand infernal lungs, through pipes or tubes of most gigantic altitudes and dimensions. The only place which can rival or perhaps excel Glasgow, in this respect, is BILSTON, near Birmingham, where the inhabitants inhale more smoke and sulphur than if they lived in the crater of Vesuvius during a smart eruption. The atmosphere of Glasgow is certainly much less bright and exhilarating than that of Italy, or even of Edin- burgh ; and no wonder, when we have so many tall and fuming pyra- mids, each of them enceinte of a young volcano, threatening to illumine, but actually darkening, the gloom of even a Caledonian climate ! Although great part of the city of Glasgow is little inferior in archi- tecture to the New Town of Edinburgh, while it is infinitely more lively and animated, yet there is something connected with the forges, the fur- naces, the foundries, and the factories the steamers and the steam- engines the tar and the hemp the cables and the anchors the warehouses, casks, cotton bales, packing-cases, rum-puncheons, tobacco hogsheads, and all the proteian forms and denominations which manu- factures and merchandise assume that damped or annihilated my romantic and picturesque ideas, and almost induced me to put a quill behind my ear, and look as thoughtful as the crowds whom I met in the streets*. * " Bothwell and Blantyre may be termed the great frontier bulwarks of the poetical and romantic part of the Clyde all beyond being the district of commerce, cotton-mill?, coal-pits, and whatever else can disgust the lover of the primitive beauties of Nature. The country below this point is, in fact, mill-ridden fairly subjugated, tamed, tor GLASGOW. 185 In every countenance that we contemplate in Glasgow, we see calcu- lation in every feature some rule of arithmetic, (especially addition or multiplication,) as legible as in the pages of Cocker. In Edinburgh, each physiognomy is characterized by the lineaments of either law, physic, metaphysics, or divinity. In Glasgow, there is also MIND in every face but it is " mind the main chance." At the time of my first visit to the Western capital, however, it is but justice to say that there was an additional element of calculation in every countenance that of life and death. Choleraphobia intermingled its pale and lurid hues with the tints of commercial anxiety and domestic affliction ! The inns and the theatres were deserted man seemed cautious of associating with his species, except in places of public devotion funeral processions superseded the cheerful promenade and the moral atmos- phere was as sombre as the physical ! In a subsequent visit, I found the streets as actively paced as those of the Strand or Cheapside the care of commerce, but no longer the dread of pestilence, in every eye ! In none of the principal streets did I see the arm-in-arm lounging of the tipper classes, or the snuff-taking, toddy-tippling swarms of the lower orders, as in Auld Reekie. We all draw imaginary portraits of what we do not see. I had pic- tured Glasgow, in my own mind, as an immense town, with narrow streets, and chiefly occupied by weavers, spinning-jennies, and opera- tives, of all descriptions, situated on the marshy banks of the Clyde. I was rather surprised and gratified to find the CITY of Glasgow constructed on the plan of the HOUSES in Edinburgh namely, on FLATS. Con- trary to the order of rank in the intellectual city, however, I found the lower flats in Glasgow occupied by the best houses, and consequently the best tenants. The Clyde-flat, between St. George's Square and the river, may compete with most parts of the New Town of Edinburgh. Above George-street and Duke-street, rise various flats and gradations of habitations and inhabitants till we come to the most surprising phenomenon which I ever witnessed on any part of the earth's surface A HARBOUR ON A HILL ! ! Looking up from one of the openings in Argyle-street, I saw, or fancied, a grove of masts far above the highest steeple in Glasgow ! Well ! thought I, if this be no spectral illusion, merited, touzled, and Gulraivished, by the demon of machinery. Steam, like a pale mid- night hag, kicks and spurs the sides of oppres-ed nature; while smoke rises on every hand, as if to express the unhappy old dame's vexation and fatigue. The centre of this is the city of Glasgow." Chambers' Picture of Scut/and. Such is the picture drawn by a Scotchman, now living, and a warm friend to his country. Yet, if an Knglisliman drew this picture, Glasgow would be up in arms against him. 186 GLASGOW. we need not wonder that " Birnam wood should come to Dunsiuane." After half an hour's laborious ascent, scrambling from flat to flat, and from factory to factory, among cotton and carbon, sulphur and soda, I reached a lofty eminence that overlooked the great western metropolis, and found myself in " PORT DUNDAS !" This eccentric PORT was crowded with shipping not exactly equal in dimensions to those of the East India Docks, but fully as respectable, perhaps, as those which bore th'e eagled legions of Caesar to the shores of Britain, or the war- riors of WODEN to the banks of Loch Lomond. Sauntering eastward from " PORT DUNDAS," along the extended arms of this HARBOUR ON THE HILL, and surveying, with wonder and admiration, the singular scene that stretched down from this airy crest to the margin of the Clyde this vast emporium of operatives this city of the shuttle this community of cotton-spinners this world of weavers and unwashed artisans, living in an atmosphere of smoke and steam I came, unexpectedly, to the foot of a colossal statue not rivalling, cer- tainly, in sculpture, the Farnese Hercules, or the Belvidere Apollo but still the statue of a far better man, and a far greater hero than either of them the HERO of the REFORMATION ! Hercules was ready enough to dispense his club-law on all occasions ; but honest KNOX laboured successfully in dispensing laws of a very different character among his countrymen. Hercules prided himself on cleansing an Augean stable. How much more difficult to cleanse was the Augean stable of Popish superstition ! Honest JOHN stands on the brink of a deep and dark ravine that se- parates him from the ancient and venerable CATHEDRAL of Glasgow. He holds the " WORD" in his hand, and he averts his look from the Gothic fane, in which he considered the " WORD" to be then perverted from its true meaning, or veiled by monks from the universal examina- tion, and consequent edification of mankind. But the sculptor, me- thinks, might have permitted the statue of the Reformer to look, with satisfaction, on the holy edifice no longer profaned by Papal rites or superstitious ceremonies. Or has the monument swerved on its pedes- tal, from some qualm of conscience ? " Colossal in its proportions (says Chambers) and undistinguished by either likeness or costume, it seems, like the spirit of the Reformer, come back to inveigh, with outstretched arm, against the Cathedral, and, if possible, complete the work which he left unfinished at his death." There is something like an insinuation in this passage, that John Knox wished the completion of the work the work of destruction to be performed by means more speedy in their operation than those employed by that " edax rerum" the scythe of TIME. That scythe will indeed ultimately mow down both the statue GLASGOW. 187 and the temple but the spirit of the REFORMER appears to gain strength by years, and draw nutriment from decay ! The colleges, museums, churches, exchanges, and public edifices in Glasgow, are as well deserving of the traveller's attention as those of most great cities. But with the sight of these lions, in various coun- tries, my eyes have been so often dimmed, that 1 fairly confess they are amongst the last objects which I am anxious to survey and, strange to say, the least conducive to that silent reflection and solitary musing which form the solace of the very few unoccupied hours of a life of nearly incessant toil ! The HUNTERIAN MUSEUM, however, afforded ample materials for a couple of hours' meditation especially as I was not cursed with the prate of a CUSTOS, but left to the uninterrupted train of my own rumi- nations. The collections of animals, of minerals, and of coins, would excite thoughts in the blankest brains ; but to the zoologist, the geolo- gist, and the antiquarian, the skins of wild beasts, the entrails of mother earth, and the images of vain man, afford peculiar delight. In the mind of the contemplative philosopher, these rare specimens excite various emo- tions, more allied, I fear, to sadness than to joy to melancholy than to pleasure ! When we see the lion and the lamb, the vulture and the dove, the tiger and the fawn, the hyena and the kid the savage roamers of the Libyan plains and the domesticated animals of civilized Europe, all residing together in amity and peace, we are reminded of that pro- mised Millennium which we are not destined to see on this terrestrial globe. The sparkling gems and ponderous ores, in a neighbouring apartment, demonstrate the sagacity and industry of man, who has penetrated into the bowels of the earth which he inhabits, and dragged forth its hidden, treasures, to be converted into myriads of implements for the benefit or the luxury of his species. Farther on, ten thousand impresses of the " human face divine" on the ductile metal, attest the manifold miseries that have resulted from the fatal thirst of MAN for riches and power ! " Effodiuntur opes irritamentamalorum.'' It is to be feared that the Golden Age will not realize the anticipations of the poets. Iron may rust, and brass may corrode but gold cor- rupts ! The manufactories of Glasgow deserve the attention of the traveller, while its industry and opulence will command his admiration. These, however, are subjects on which I cannot dwell, in a tour of this kind. 188 AILSA. AILS A. If STAFFA can point the finger of contempt at the puny imitations of her temples on lona, AILSA may well smile in pity at the Pyramids of Egypt. Rising abruptly, yet conically, eleven hundred feet out of the ocean, this magnificent rock seems much larger than it really is partly from its insulated position, having no other objects of compa- rison partly from the haze which gathers round its summit, and greatly augments its height in the imagination of the spectator; Its sides rise at an angle of about forty-five degrees and thus, with a fre- quent cap of cloud, it resembles a gigantic pyramid, or rather a volcano, like Strombolo, belching forth smoke. The interest of the scene is rather increased than diminished by proximity to the object. " If it have not (says a modern traveller) the regularity of Staffa, it exceeds that island as much in grandeur and variety, as it does in absolute bulk. There is indeed nothing, even in the columnar scenery of Sky, or in the Shiant Isles (superior as these are to Staffa) which exceeds, if it even equals, that of Ailsa. In point of colouring, these cliffs have an infi- nite advantage : the sobriety of their pale grey tone not only harmo- nizing with the subdued tints of green, and with the colours of the sea and sky, but setting off to advantage all the intricacies of the columnar structure; while in all the Western Islands, where this kind of scenery occurs, the blackness of the rocks is, not only often inharmonious and harsh, but a frequent source of obscurity and confusion. Those who are only desirous of viewing one example of that romantic arid wonder- ful scenery which forms the chief attraction of the more distant islands, will be pleased to know that within a day's sail of Greenock, and with- out trouble, they may see what cannot be eclipsed by Staffa, Mull, or Sky, if even it can be equalled by any of them." When the above lines were penned, steam had not become common in vessels. /The Liverpool and Glasgow steamers now pass close to Ailsa everf day ; yet so little is this wonderful craig known, that I had great difficulty in persuading the' captain to steer close to the western side of the rock, where all the wonder and beauty reside, not one of fifty passengers assisting my prayer, or appearing to know or care any thing about the matter ! At length I gained my point, and the VUI.CAN steamer ranged within pistol-shot of the western precipice, presenting magnificent ranges of basaltic columns, all perpendicular, and seeming to support the island itself. A gun was charged on the forecastle by the obliging captain of the steamer. MacCulloch's description of the AILSA. 189 birds falling, like a shower of snow, is not correct a charge that is not often applicable to this entertaining tourist. The moment the cannon is fired, the whole rock appears animated with countless myriads of birds. For a moment, they seem to be fluttering on the surface of the rock, as if undetermined what to do ; but in less than a minute, they rise in a cloud, and wing their way to the westward. It is at this instant that they resemble a dense shower of snow in a hurricane of wind. They all fly horizontally, like snow carried along by the rapid gale. They are soon lost in the distance, and do not appear to fall at all. Mean- while, the thunder of the cannon is reverberated a thousand times from cliff to cliff, and from cavern to cavern, till it dies away in faint echoes on the wondering ear. In a few minutes, however, the panic subsides, and the living shower comes wafting along, in an opposite direction at first sparingly, but gradually increasing, till the whole of the dispersed myriads once more regain their rocky and airy habitations, led on in squadrons or divisions, by their respective commanders. I passed Ailsa at another time, by moonlight ; and the wild and varied screams of the birds, disturbed by the fire and smoke of the steamer, formed the most singular and interesting chorus I had ever heard. The whole pyramid seemed like an encampment surprised in the night by the enemy, and rushing to arms, in consternation if not in dismay. AILSA produces a powerful effect on the senses. It unites the sub- lime and the beautiful, by combining greatness of dimensions, simpli- city of form, and variety of features all under the control of an almost architectural regularity and all completely comprehensible by one grasp of the eye. " There is nothing which we are obliged to infer or conjecture no unattainable point to wish for, whence it might appear to the greatest advantage ; but, at one view, we are overwhelmed with its magnitude, and struck by its sublimity and elegance, while we are entertained with the beauties of its natural and magnificent architec- ture, with all the variety and playfulness of its details, and with the exquisite harmony, both of its general and its local colouring." On the eastern side of this remarkable islet there is a landing-place, and a deserted house, erected by a late, but unsuccessful fishing com- pany. About two hundred feet of easy ascent brings us to a terrace, on which is a ruined tower, of unknown history and antiquity probably an eremitical establishment. The ascent from this resting-place to the summit is extremely laborious an endless labyrinth of fragments of rocks intermixed with various tall plants of luxurious growth. The nettles form a forest, nearly six feet high, and so dense that it is difficult to get through them. All the plants on this singular rock are of gigan- tic size. Two sparkling springs of delicious water are found near the 100 ATLSA. summit of the rock. Even the very apex of this huge natural pyramid is covered with fine grass intermixed with rocks. To the westward, the eye dares hardly venture to look down the precipices. The goats them- selves, who divide this domain with the rabbits, are shy of adventure here. The birds, chiefly garmets, occupy the faces of the cliffs, and the feathered population of these airy eminences is not exceeded even by that of St. Kilda. In the breeding season it produces concerts of the most wild and romantic kind. Gannets, puffins, cormorants, auks, and gulls are the joint tenants of the place each tribe having its particular allotment of rock and grass the international as well as private law of property appearing to be preserved inviolate and in a manner which their rivals in all but feathers the " animal implume bipes," might copy with advantage ! As I said before, it is the western side of Ailsa that presents the most magnificent scenery. On that side the rock rises almost perpendicularly from the sea, and, throughout the greater part, is columnar. This scenery is best contemplated in a boat or in the steamer, at some dis- tance from the rock. In some places and aspects, as we sail along, the regularity of the basaltic columns is little inferior to what is seen at Staffa, with this difference, and perhaps advantage the far greater elevation, and consequent repetition of fresh pillars rising in succession above each other. The great peculiarities of the basaltic columns, in Ailsa, are the absence of joints, and obliquity of fracture at the termi- nation of each pillar. We rarely see a transverse fracture, as in Staffa, Sky, and the Shiant Isles. The columns, too, appear to be more blended together and inseparable in Ailsa than in the localities just mentioned. The diameters of the Ailsa columns range from six to nine feet, and these natural pillars are equally gigantic in their altitude. In one place the basaltic cliff rises nearly four hundred feet perpendicular the columnar regularity being sufficiently perfect. Here there is a vast superiority over Staffa or the Shiant Isles. Staffa, however, has been the subject of adoration, and justly so, since 1772; while Ailsa, at our own doors, was not even known to be columnar, till Dr. Mac- Culloch pointed out the fact, a few years ago ! The most beautiful part of Ailsa lies immediately north of the highest cliff, where a succession of intricate parts form a picture, or rather series of views, unequalled in any scene of the Western Islands. A cave near the water's edge forms the leading mark for this interesting spot, and is, in itself, the centre or eye of the principal picture. The dark- ness of the aperture is of great value, in giving tone to the landscape offering a point of repose and contrast to the surrounding minuteness of ornament. This cave lies in a deep recess, between two columnar pro- TOURISTS IN SCOTlANU. 191 montories, the grassy acclivity of the mountain rising rapidly above them, crowned aloft by a magnificent range of columns. I shall con- clude with the words of a modern traveller who has examined this singular spot with the eye of a painter, and the science of a geologist : " To a scene so finely composed that scarcely any thing could be altered with the effect of increasing its variety or grandeur, it is a singu- larly happy addition that, in more lights than one, it is illuminated in a manner so perfect as to leave nothing to be wished : the extremest breadth and simplicity of general light and shadow being united on the side of the light with a thousand minor shades and demi-tints, and, on that of the shadow, with deeper tones of shades, and with reflected lights of various intensity, which produce an effect no less splendid than it is in harmony with the composition of the parts. The colouring is no less fine and no less harmonious, the mild grey and green tones of the hill aloft being softened and generalized with the sky by the air-tints of the summit, then gradually increasing in force as they approach the eye, but still preserving the same general colour, till, as they reach the sea, the darker hues of grey and the rich brown of the sea weeds that skirt the shore, unite them with the deep green of the water, serving at the same time to throw into distance the soberer tints, and thus to aug- ment incalculably the apparent magnitude of the whole*." Many a traveller proceeding from Liverpool to Glasgow, will thank me for this brief notice of Ailsa a notice which, I venture to say, will not merely induce, but compel every captain of a steamer to steer along the western front of one of the most sublime scenes in the united king- dom. That skipper who refuses to gratify his passengers with such a sight, ought to be marked as a GOTH or VANDAL; while on the sable funnel of the steamer, each passenger should write with his pencil " Hie niger est hunc tu, Romane, caveto." TOURISTS IN SCOTLAND. The great lexicographer (Johnson) brought a tremendous swarm of hornets round his ears by some observations in his celebrated journey to the Hebrides. Yet it appears to me that the Scotch have been unnecessarily sensitive on this occasion. The perusal of Johnson's tour, long before I saw Scotland, impressed me with a most favourable opinion of the Scotch, and generated an ardent desire to visit their , _______ . . , * MacCullocli, vol. ii. p. 60. 192 TOURISTS IN SCOTLAND. country. I have no doubt that the same impression has been made on most other readers ; and I was astonished that such offence could have been taken at the lexicographer's remarks. It is true that Johnson observed an abundance of rock, a scarcity of trees, and quite enough of poverty, in many parts of Scotland. But a Scotchman need no more be irritated at the notice of such things, than a Frenchman, on being told that many of his countrymen wear wooden shoes, and some of them eat frogs than a Swiss, on hearing that snow, rocks, and glaciers, cover half his country than an Italian, on reading in the journals of travellers, that Italy is infested with monks and malaria than a Spaniard, on seeing an Englishman turn up his nose at black bread and garlic than an Irishman, when the potatoes, the bogs, the whiskey, and the misery of his country are described than a Yankee, on seeing in print (what he had, perhaps, seen in reality) that his countrymen are often smoking cigars, and sometimes spitting on the carpets than a Russian, on being told that the Muscovites sleep on their ovens, and drink train oil than a German, on seeing his head painted square instead of round, with a great bump of ideality on the vertex than a Mussulman, who is quizzed for chewing opium and believing in Mahomet than a Dutchman, who finds himself classed among the amphibia, for living half above and half below water. He found that the country people answered readily, but not very cor- rectly, the questions he put to them. The Irish do the same, from the exuberance of their imagination ; and had Dr. Johnson travelled among them, he would have reported accordingly. When the English boor is interrogated, he gives a gruff and surly answer, if able and if not able, he has neither poetry nor politeness enough to amuse and satisfy the querist with a fiction of the fancy. The Rev. Mr. MacNicol has written a book of commentaries on Johnson's tour, as large as the original work ! The divine is certainly somewhat hypercritical on the poor doctor, as well as supersensitive in everything that relates to Scotland. But surely lie loses his temper, and descends almost to the scurrilous, when, in revenge for Johnson's inability to see a tree between Kirkaldy and Cupar, he informs the doctor that, if Fame be not a liar, one of his (Johnson's) ancestors found to his cost that there were trees in Scotland, inasmuch as he was hanged on one of them ! Johnson has represented the upper classes in Scot- land as hospitable and intelligent the lower classes as poor, but honest the middle classes (the few that then were) as industrious and frugal. There are few countries in the world of which so much good can be said, not even excepting England. Dr. Johnson appears to have taken little notice of the sublime, the picturesque, or the TOURISTS IN SCOTLAND. 193 romantic scenes through which he passed: and this is the more won- derful, considering that he never, in all probability, travelled farther, previously, than from Lichfield to London. Boswell's account of the journey is infinitely more entertaining and instructive than Johnson's and why ? because he has detailed the conversations of the literary colossus, which the lexicographer could not do himself. It is very true that these conversations, very often, had little connexion with the tour, or any of the objects presented to the senses in the Highlands or islands : they might have just as well, and almost as naturally, occurred in Bolt-court, or the Rainbow tavern, in Fleet-street, as in Aberdeen, Inver- ness, Mull, or Sky. The great man could not indulge in description, on account of the shortness of his sight and the little one wisely confined himself to the office of short-hand writer, by which he was able to pick up all the crumbs that fell from the table during each intellectual banquet. Dr. Johnson's incredulity respecting the authenticity of Ossian's poems appears to have been the principal source of irritation on the part of the Scotch. If a modern Dr. Johnson doubted on the same subject, the offence would not be so highly resented. Poor MAcCuLLOCH has fared far worse than JOHNSON ; for, being a Scotchman himself, his strictures on his countrymen are infinitely more galling than if from the pen of a stranger. It is not to be denied, indeed, that the Scotch have some reason to complain of Dr. MacCul- loch ; for he has often painted DONALD in the most ludicrous colours. The gastronomy of Scotland seems to have attracted more attention from both these travellers, than any other single object ; and the great geologist loses no opportunity of satirizing the CUISINE of the Highlands. Mrs. Trollope, indeed, has not said half so severe things of the Ameri- cans, as Dr. MacCulloch has put on record respecting his own country- men, and therefore we need not wonder at the burst of indignation which has been raised against him on the north side of the Tweed. But Dr. Johnson's tour is couched in very different language, and deserved not the censure which it has met. The following is a specimen of these censures : " In performing this much-talked-of tour, the ' great moralist ' (as it was once the fashion to call this scrofulous literary despot) was necessitated to use the eyes of others, because he was blind himself. Johnson came into Scotland, foaming like a bear about Ossian, and predetermined to believe that the Scots were savages, and their country uninhabitable. His book, accordingly, is full of grumbling, saucy, and ill-natured observations, the spawn of a mind contracted and illiberal." Critical Examination, &c., p. 8-9. Hard words these, my masters, especially when applied to one of the 194 TOURISTS IN SCOTLAND. most learned, moral, and religious writers that England ever produced ! Dr. MacCalloch indulged his vein of satire and ridicule, he, therefore, deserves the retort courteous or uncourteous. Not so the man whose researches and lucubrations diffused more knowledge, morality, and piety through the kingdom, than the writings of any individual what- ever. The supersensitiveness of Scotchmen, in all things touching national character, is a peculiarity, rather than a fault ; but the temper of the reaction, as evinced by the northern retaliators, is, at the very least, impolitic. The strictures of a traveller, if just, are calculated to do good to the country through which he passes : if unjust, they will do more injury to himself than to the people unfairly criticised. The English are quizzed, misrepresented, and ridiculed, all over the world by which they are greatly diverted seldom irritated. The errors, the falsehoods, the caricatures of the GERMAN PRINCE, and the BARON D'HAUSSEZ, caused a convulsion of laughter from the Thames to the Tyne. Let the Scotch, who are amongst the shrewdest of the human race, take a hint from this fact. Ridicule is said to be the test of truth though I doubt the justice of this dogma. At all events, it is certain that those who are censured wrongfully, ought to bear the cen- sure with the greatest equanimity. I don't think the Scotch now take any great offence at Johnson's remarks ; and the testimony of Lord Hailes and Mr. Dempster, among others, as adduced by Boswell, is a sufficient set off to Mr. MacNichol's and Mr. Browne's asperity of criticism. Lord Hailes observes: " I admire the elegance and variety of description, and the lively picture of men and manners. I always approve of the moral, often of the political reflections. I love the benevolence of the author." Mr. Dempster asserts, that " there is nothing in this book, from beginning to end, that a Scotchman need to take amiss." So say I. He gives the Scotch a better character than he could have conscientiously given to his own countrymen. In the conversations of Johnson with the various persons who hospi- tably entertained him, as recorded, and no doubt faithfully, by Boswell, there is frequently an uncouthness not to say want of common man- ners, which has greatly surprised me. Johnson was, no doubt, an exceedingly moral and religious character ; but, in the social conversa- tions detailed by Boswell, the literary despot was always conspicuous ; and it is evident that the " COLOSSUS of LITERATURE " argued for VICTORY as strenuously in the wilds of Sky and Raasay, with Highland lairds and Presbyterian pastors, as at the TURK'S HEAD, with Burke, Goldsmith, or any of the wits and literati of the age. This was a great want of tact, as well as of common sense and sensibility in the lexico- MEMORY. 195 grapher. But some excuse may be made for a man who had rarely wandered many miles from Fleet-street, and who was accustomed to receive homage from the choicest spirits of the age, in the metropolis of the British isles. In these personal narratives of Johnson and Boswell, we cannot help wondering at the impunity with which the unwieldy and infirm lexico- grapher bore so much toil of body and exposure to the elements. He had to travel most of the way on shelties often long journeys drenched with rain lying in barns at night, or tossed about in open boats among the islands, exposed to storms of wind and rain yet without any injury to his health, which was far from firm, notwithstanding his figure and size! It must be remembered, too, that Dr. Johnson was, of all men, the least accustomed to travelling being a book-worm of the first water, and rarely taking more exercise than an evening ramble from Fleet-street to the neighbourhood of Soho-square. This circumstance speaks volumes in favour of the salutary effects of travelling. MEMORY. I think I hear the reader exclaim, " What has memory to do with the Highlands ?" It has a great deal more to do with HIGH lands than with LOW lands in every country. Who that has travelled over the Alps or the Apennines, does not remember distinctly every cliff, peak, and precipice that met his eyes ? Who remembers any thing of the insipid plains of France except the ennui which he experienced while traversing them ? Who remembers any thing of Holland except the villanous effluvia of gin and tobacco ? Who remembers any thing of the boundless prairies of America except the sense of solitude and of sadness that was felt in crossing the " weary wastes expanding to the skies *." Who forgets any thing which he has seen, felt, or heard, in * I was exceedingly amused with the attempts of a recent American traveller (the Rev. Mr. Flint) to elevate the scenery of the Prairies to a level with the Alpine and other romantic scenery of the Old World ; and to compare the tumuli of unknown pig. mies, found on the plains of the Mississippi, with the ruins of Egypt, Greece, and Italy, in point of historical interest! This parallel is most injudicious. Let our Transatlantic brethren be contented with their free institutions, their boundless forests, their mighty rivers, their impassable swamps, their withering agues, their yellow fevers, their rude back-woodsmen, their fertile territory, their flourishing cities, and their spreading com- merce. But let them not think of touching on the subject of historical associations till after the year of our Lord 3834. If they talk of the olden time, before this era, let it be in connexion with their own fader land EUUOPE. The Canadian and the kangaroo may vaant the antiquity of their countries and specie?, "the records of whose origins o 2 1 96 MEMORY. Switzerland or Italy ? Ask a Highlander, \vho has broiled for thirty years under a tropical sun, whether he remembers his native moun- tains ? He will probably reply in the words of the semi-idiot in Waverley " My heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not here My heart 's in the Highlands, a chasing the deer : A chasing the wild deer and following the roe, My heart 's in the Highlands wherever I go !'' Whether the above be the simple effusion of Davy Gellatly, or the more studied composition of Walter Scott, it is the language of nature on the tongue of a Highlander. There are very few people who do not complain more or less of a bad memory a short memory a treacherous memory, &c. Yet if we are to credit the celebrated author of the " ESSAY ON MAN," loss of memory would be a gain. " Thus in the soul where MEMORY prevails, The solid power of UNDERSTANDING fails ; Where beams of bright imagination play, The memory's soft figures melt away." But Pope was a better poet than metaphysician, and on the above point his prompter, Bolingbroke, misled the bard. Perception furnishes, and memory preserves, the whole materiel of our knowledge ; while imagination and reflection are merely architects that convert, the rough materials into various forms afterwards. So far from being incompa- tible with the " solid power of understanding," a strong memory is essential to the existence of sound judgment. But memory is one of the first of our faculties to decay with age, or become weakened by bodily disorder hence the general complaint of its being irretentive. This complaint is rarely felt, till time or sickness has impaired the faculty. Fortunately the memory is faithful and retentive during that period of life in which the stock of knowledge is laid up. The faculty may then fail ; but the UNDERSTANDING has been furnished with proper materials for carrying on the ordinary concerns of life. It rarely happens that the substance of early knowledge is ever lost though its sources, its mi- nutiae, and its technicalities lapse from the tablet of memory. The im- pressions of external objects on the youthful mind are graven in brass those of our last years are written in sand or even in water ! This said memory is one of the most wonderful and mysterious func- tions or operations of mind or matter. We can form some faint idea of are buried in primeval darkness; but it is not for the emigrant and the exile to talk of the antiquity of their lands till the ink of their title-deeds be dry. MEMORY. 197 the impression which an object, say a ruin, makes on the sensorium through the medium of the eye ; but how MEMORY can fix the impres- sion there or, at all events, reproduce it at pleasure, for fifty, sixty, or eighty years afterwards, is most miraculous ! The materialist tells us that matter peculiarly formed, as in the brain, may think, without the intervention of any immaterial principle, termed mind, or soul. There is a consideration connected with MEMORY, which may be worth notice here. All anatomists and physiologists allow that the whole structure of the brain is repeatedly renewed in the course of life there being not a particle of the same organ in manhood, which existed in youth. Now, how can an image, impressed on the brain in youth, be recalled in man- hood, when no part of the organ remains on which the impression was actually made? A youth is struck with the appearance of an ivy- mantled tower; but goes abroad, and thinks no more of the matter for twenty or thirty years, when, on returning, some incidental circumstance, as the road leading to the tower, and without any sight of the object itself, renews the image as vividly as when first perceived the same brain no longer existing, whereon the original picture was impressed ! This, to me, indicates that memory is a function of something beyond the boundary of matter. This supposition is strengthened by the fact, that phrenologists have never been able to discover any organ of me- mory. It may be urged, and justly, that animals possess memory, and, consequently, that it is no necessary quality of an immortal soul. But animals may have a modification of mind (every animated being must have an infusion of divine intelligence) without that mind being immor- tal. They are circumstanced very differently from man. They are bound down within the impassable circle of INSTINCT and cannot fairly be responsible for the actions that inevitably flow from that instinct. But man has REASON conferred on him, and liberty to do good or evil. If he be irresponsible, his Creator can hardly be just. But to return to memory. This, like every other faculty or function of the mind, is clearly manifested through the instrumentality of matter. Although the brain cannot (as I believe) think, the mind cannot render thought obvious, without the brain. The piano-forte cannot bring forth harmonious music without the fingers the fingers, without the piano-forte : impair or derange the musical instrument, and the powers of the best player are proportionally impaired to all appearance. The memory decays with the body, or is temporarily deranged by dis- orders of its material seat, the brain and so of every mental faculty. But this, the great argument of the Materialists, offers no proof that the mind or soul itself decays or dies; but merely that the material organ of its manifestation, in this world, is subject to changes and dissolution. 198 MEMORY. The memory is liable enough to wear and tear, from natural and un- avoidable causes, without exaggerating or feigning its deficiencies to cover negligence. Attention is the parent of memory and one half of our complaints respecting weak memory originates in INATTENTION. We neglect to observe, and then we say we forget. Want of laudable curiosity is a great source of weak impressions and consequently of bad memory. The first time I ever approached the " Eternal City," I got up on the dickey, in order to have a better view of each object. There my ears were dinned by a long story about a favourite horse, which my fellow-traveller had left in England ! After passing over the Milvian Bridge, I asked this gentleman if he knew the name of the river we had just passed " River ! " said he, " I have seen no river." I pointed out a yelloAv stream behind us, and then he acknowledged that he had passed the Tiber unobserved ! Now, any particulars that escaped this gentleman's observation, would infallibly be put down to the account of a treacherous memory afterwards. I once visited Staffa in company with an old East Indian. He sat down on a block of basalt at the entrance of Fingal's Cave, while we ex- amined the interior. On returning to the steamer, he exclaimed, " What a confounded fool I have been to come so far to see a great heap of stones!" We afterwards ascended Ben-Cruachan together. On gaining the summit, I asked him what he thought of the magnificent prospect around us ? "I like the journey," said he, " up this mountain, much better than the excursion to Staffa. That cruize took away the little appetite I had ; but this morning's exercise has excited the only sense of real hunger which I have felt since I left Vizagapatam." He then sat down and enjoyed a hearty second breakfast, without any notice of the circumjacent panorama. Now, the natural scenery of Ben-Cruachan and the natural architecture of Staffa could not remain on the memory, when the images were never vividly impressed on the sensorium. Metaphysicians tell us that memory is not under the command of the will that we cannot recollect when we please nor banish recollections when they arise, by any act of volition. This is a great error. We can instantly FORGET an old friend or intimate acquaintance, if he falls into adversity ; and recall him to mind as suddenly, if he emerges into opulence or power. Our memory is also remarkably tenacious of any injury that has been done to us ; and equally treacherous as to favours conferred. Certain avocations and offices affect the memory, in a very singular manner. Prime Ministers, First Lords of the Admiralty, &c., have, ex officio, very treacherous memories, in respect to promises, which is the cause of their making so many, all being forgotten except the one that is just on the tapis. Parents very generally forget that they were MEMORY. 199 ever young and children that they are ever to be old. Matrimony affects the memory in a very partial manner. I have known many instances where ladies have suddenly forgotten the words " love, honour, and obey;" but none where the exact amount of PIN-MONEY escaped recol- lection. The sight of beauty often causes forgetfulness in the spectator, for which we have the authority of Pope " If to her lot some female errors fall, Look in her face, and you'll forget them all." In the female spectator, beauty has often a very different effect. I knew a lady who complained that she expected soon to forget her own name : yet she minutely remembered the ages, failings, and deformities of all her handsome female friends. Tenacity and treachery of memory run very much in families. The nobleman seldom forgets his high descent the plebeian can rarely remember the names of his forefathers. It would be better for both classes if this condition of memory were sometimes reversed. I have thus endeavoured to prove by facts, that, contrary to meta- physical canons, MEMORY and FORGETFULNESS are under the command of the will ; but I have cited no authorities. Shakspeare has left the matter undecided. He makes a murderer ask a physician for some potent drug that may " Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow." But the physician gives an evasive answer, and tells Macbeth he must " purge his foul bosom" by his own exertions. But I will give the authority of Blackstone (who was surely a judge) that memory is a mere act of volition. He charges the jury (and the example is fol- lowed by every judge and coroner since Blackstone's days) to forget every thing they may have seen, heard, or felt, prior to the trial, and to remember nothing but what comes out from the evidence in court, while they arc in the jury-box. Now, solemn judges would not daily issue from the bench an injunction that was impossible to be obeyed. Did not, in fact, the famous jury, in the case of a slaughtered police- man, forget every thing but the evidence before them, (and a good deal of that too,) and thus bring in an impartial and strictly legal verdict of "justifiable homicide" against a person unknown ! ! This disquisition, or rather digression on MEMORY, arose in my mind when I was on the point of parting from the boundary of the Highlands near Glasgow. Whether my destinies may permit me ever again to revisit the " land of mountain and of flood," I know not; but I believe and hope that the vivid impressions which its scenery has made on the tablet of memory, will not easily be erased. Land of Bradwardine, adieu ! 200 LANARK OWENISM. LANARK. The drive from Glasgow to Edinburgh occupies but one line in my note-book and that a geometrical one, without any other quality than extension from the one point to the other. The same is the case with the journey from Edinburgh to Lanark. All is a blank, except where the variegated and fragrant heather recalled the mind to the Highlands. The sudden withdrawal of external stimuli is naturally followed by a cessation of internal excitement. The mind, therefore, had time to take a nap on the journey to Corra Linn. In LANARK, I awoke to sensation and reflection. Here we are in a new, though a very small world less than the planet Mercury. It is both a revolving planet, and a fixed star a community of spinning- jennies, a colony of cotton-twisters, a republic of Owehites. It is the most noisy little republic I have ever visited. Noisy at home, and noisy abroad. I have heard it at two thousand miles' distance and when I got within its narrow precincts, I could hardly hear my own voice, or the voices of my companions. We wound our way, not without some terror, through myriads of wheels and a roar of machi- nery ; swallowing as much cotton as would make for each of us a pair of stockings, and inhaling oil enough to grease the joints of our limbs for the remainder of our journey to modern Babylon. Even in the cheerless, monotonous, and spirit-sinking swamps of America, where man is soon converted into grass, and mind into mud where the soul dies in the body, if, indeed, it is ever born there where the stream of life is languid as Acheron, melancholy as Cocytus, turbid as the Mississippi, and oblivious as Lethe even there this COM- MON-WEALTH, or common misery of the Owenites could not take root ! It is not necessary to make many comments on this little microcosm of millers. That the Owenite system, or common-wealth, might work tolerably well in a petty republic of cotton-spinners, whose territory or watertory extends nearly half a mile by five hundred feet, between a precipice and a torrent the greater part of which is occupied by their mill is not impossible ; but that such a community of property could exist on a large scale, (unless people first emptied their brains into one common store,) would never have entered the imagination of any one whose organs of perception, judgment, and reflection, had not been jumbled together by a mistake of Nature, and all located in the wrong places. OWENISM, however, has one great advantage over ST. SIMONI- ANISM. The former is merely absurd and impracticable the latter is indecent and flagitious ! FALLS OF CLYDE. 201 But if I hold Mr. Owen's UTOPIA very cheap, I greatly admire his mill. If it he not on so grand a scale as some factories in Glasgow or Manchester, or constructed with all the advantages of recent improve- ments, its romantic situation, its freedom from smoke and steam (being worked by water) its salubrious air and its humane regulations, are beyond all praise, and are attested by the cheerful and healthy counte- nances of every Jock and Jenny in its establishment. I have never seen a more curious or picturesque object than Lanark mill and its immediate, vicinity. The huge fabric has more windows than Argus had eyes. Standing opposite to the mill, on the road that winds along under a precipice, we see the whole machinery in full play, as clearly as we see the wheels and works of a great chronometer in a glass case. The Clyde foams along the rocks rise on all sides and natural woods crown every eminence. Our admiration is changed into astonishment when we enter the factor}', and behold the gigantic automaton the cotton-spinning Briareus with his hundred hands, and five hundred fingers, at work on a thousand different and difficult operations all performed with a regularity, celerity, and force beyond the power of human manipulation ! FALLS OF CLYDE. It is no disparagement to the falls of the Clyde, that I was disap- pointed in my expectations at first beholding them. The same disap- pointment has been my lot in every part of the world. I confess, however, that I am somewhat fastidious, if not unreasonable, on the subject of waterfalls. Niagara was deficient in height the Staubach in volume. If the river St. Lawrence should ever take a leap of eight hundred feet over the precipice of Staubach, and foam along through the valley of Lauterbrunnen, I think I should be satisfied, and would make a pilgrimage, barefooted, to Switzerland, to see the stupendous cataract ! In the falls of the Rhine, I was not merely disappointed, but mortified at least in the first view of them. When I got to the edge of the watery avalanche, I was gratified. Terni, Tivoli, and fifty other intermediate cascades, fell short of my anticipations, or rather of my romantic wishings and imaginings. The Fall of Fyers is the only one that can compete with that of the Clyde, in Scotland and it is probable that the majority of tourists will award the palm of superiority to the latter. The Fall of Fyers is higher, and the scenery more savage that of the Clyde has greater volume, and the vicinity more beautiful and picturesque. 202 FALLS OF CLYDE. Had this been the first tour I ever made had this been the first waterfall I ever saw and had the event happened at the age of nine- teen or twenty, fresh from the banks of the CAM or the I sis, I have no doubt that CORRA LINN would have excited a train of vivid sensations, ending in some such flowery and enthusiastic description as the follow- ing: " At a considerable distance from you, you descry a large, dense vapour rising from the waters, like a cloud of thick smoke ascending slowly towards Heaven. A hoarse and sullen noise, too, begins here to vibrate on your ears. As you proceed, vivid corruscations, tinged with all the varied hues of the rainbow, seem to irradiate the cloud. The noise also gradually increases as you advance, till reaching a seat placed directly in view of the CORRA LINN, a most ravishing scene, unparalleled in Britain, opens suddenly upon you. A cold and fearful shuddering seizes upon your frame your ears are stunned your organs of vision, hurried along by the incessant tumult of the roaring waters, seem to participate in their turbulence, and to carry you along with them into the gulph below your powers of action and recollection are suspended ! Though eager to be gone, you become riveted to the spot ; and it is not till after a considerable time that you begin to regain composure sufficient to contemplate, with any degree of satisfaction, the grand and awful objects here presented to your view. " Picture to yourself the whole of these waters, day after day, and night after night, with immense violence and velocity, and with a din so horrid and incessant as to unstring the nerves and appal the soul rushing over this rugged and abrupt bottom into a dark abyss. Figure them, then, by their tumultuous agitation and endless repercussions, threatening instant ruin to all around. Throw into the picture the sur- rounding scenery the lofty banks of the river, fringed with underwood, and crowned with stately trees of various kinds and forms the house of Corra on the right, rocking from its base the castle below tottering over the fall the mill still farther down, drenched with spray, and the glittering exhalations hovering in the air and then say whether it be enthusiasm to class this scene among the noblest, most impressive, and sublimely great of Nature's wondrous works." The foregoing passage may be seen in the last edition of the " TOURIST'S MANUAL," one of the best pocket companions to the Land of Cakes and is doubtless the production of some sentimental tourist, though the name of the author is not added by the compiler. The de- scription is certainly exaggerated but less so than many descriptions of scenes in this and in other countries. It exemplifies an observation which I have, more than once, made in this volume, that tourists injure GRETNA GREEN. 20.3 the scenes which they delineate, by the extravagance of their ornamental descriptions. In old and experienced travellers, indeed, such vivid pictures excite not extraordinary anticipations, and, consequently, pro- duce not any poignant disappointment. But the great majority of visiters have their expectations raised to a most inordinate pitch; and when the long-expected wonder bursts on their view, a mortifying failure in the visual banquet is the result. Let the tourist approach the Falls of the Clyde under the impression of these chastened antici- pations, and he will be gratified by a splendid scene of fractured rocks, over which a pellucid river leaps, foams, and roars triumphantly ; while the mural precipices, on each side, crowned with verdant woods, re-echo the boisterous cheers of the tumbling and inebriated torrent. GRETNA GREEN. The malicious postillion went up at full gallop to the inn at Spring- field: and the bustle occasioned by the arrival of a post-chaise, con- taining a gentleman and two ladies, appeared rather unusual, though, no doubt, a very ordinary occurrence at this particular hotel. There was no mistaking the cause of the bustle and I therefore promptly inquired of Mr. Boniface for the son of Vulcan, who riveted the chains of matrimony with such celerity at Gretna ? The smiling innkeeper replied that HE had the honour of being the operator on such happy occasions, the office having been recently transferred to genteeler hands than those of a blacksmith. I asked him if he could unriiet the fetters of matrimony ? He shrugged up his shoulders, with an evident nega- tion. Then, said I, you can be of no service to me order fresh horses for Carlisle. I suggested to the astonished priest the advantage of having two strings to his bow a good file, as well as a hammer, in Springfield house ; assuring him that, if he used the former instrument with dexterity, he would have ten times more custom from England than he now had. At GRETNA, Holy Mother Church has a chapel of ease, where incense is burnt on the altars of three different divinities at the same time. Bacchus, Cupid, and Hymen, have here formed a kind of joint-stock company, for the sale, on moderate terms, of liquor, love, and matri- mony. In England, the free trade in wedlock is shackled with as many taxes, duties, and drawbacks, as the free-trade in corn, wine, or usque- baugh. In Scotland, every facility is given to matrimony; and the little god Hymen, with Cupid at his elbow, is every day seen bounding over the small stream that separates the two countries, to unite, in the holy 204 CARLISLE. bonds of wedlock, some happy couple, to whom heartless parents, inexorable guardians, and rigid laws, refuse their sanction on the southern side of the Sark. CARLISLE. The flat country between the Sark and Carlisle, presents, to the military eye, a fine field for pitched battles between the two kingdoms ; but the good old border times will never return ! We had some difficulty in getting access to Carlisle Castle, as the garrison was apprehensive of our introducing the cholera from Scot- land. But our ruddy and sunburnt complexions gave assurance to the commanding officer that we were little likely to carry infection into the camp. The view from the highest tower is certainly fine, and the weather was well calculated to improve the prospect. Queen Mary's apartments do not excite such vivid emotions in the mind (though the tragic tale is history) as the old square tower, where Mac Ivor's fetters were struck off, previously to execution, and where the faithful Mac- combish offered his own life, and that of six of his best clansmen, to save the head of his chief! The town where Flora Mac Ivor sewed the winding-sheet of her brother, and where Edward Waverley performed the last sad offices of friendship to his fiery but gallant Highland com- panion in a hopeless cause, will draw forth the sigh nay, the tear of sympathy, from the passing stranger, long after the red battlements of the castle shall have mouldered into dust ! But it is \iseless to sigh or to weep over the tragedies enacted by man on this little globe. It is wiser at least it is pleasanter to laugh at his fooleries. Time's telescope brings into view, from Carlisle Castle, what Sir Richard Phillips would call " a million of facts," and fifty million of fictions all furnishing food for the contemplative tourist, and more especially for the book-making traveller, and border minstrel. The remains of the wall of Severus might make a good scene for a historical novel. The Romans must have been stout REPEALERS or, at least, sturdy anti-unionists. SEVERUS was a DAN of the first water in his day ; but he calculated without his host, when he expected that a wall from Carlisle to Newcastle, some twenty feet high, would sever Scotland from England. Na, na. If a chain of Alps as high as Mont Blanc were thrown across from sea to sea, Sawney Macgriggor would scale them ; and, having surveyed the fertile plains that stretch from Carlisle to Penryn, he would slide down, southward, over snow and glacier, even if he had nothing but the KILT d posteriori, to defend him from the cold THE ENGIISH LAKES. 205 sharp icicles of the descent ! All contrasts produce harmonies. The frosts and fogs of the north, together with the " stimulus of necessity," urge the Caledonian south, in pursuit of more genial skies and any other little thing that may turn up on the journey : While the relax- ing atmosphere of England, plethoric wealth, and thirst of change, impel thousands annually to wander among the Highland mountains, to get their skins cooled hy Scotch mists, their stomachs warmed with Highland whiskey, and their constitutions invigorated by active exercise and pure air. In respect to the Emerald Isle, the King of KERRY has made as great a mistake as the Emperor SEVERUS. If the Irish Channel were as broad as the Atlantic, Paddy and his pig, together with other subordi- nate branches of his family, would find their way across, " even in a cobble, to visit JOHN BULL. Would that some Hibernian SCOTT started into existence, and, by a series of Irish novels, induce the family of the Bulls to visit annually, the Giant's Causeway and the lakes of Killarney ! ! He would do more good to his country than all the REPEALERS between Cape Clear and Fair-head. THE ENGLISH LAKES. The character of English scenery in general is fertile beauty that of Scotland is barren beauty, intermixed with much of the sublime, and more of the frigorific *. The scenery of the English lakes is interme- diate between these two ; or rather combines the characteristics of both. Derwentwater is little inferior to Loch Katrine. Borrowdale is scarcely less wild than the Trosachs, and Skiddaw is higher than Ben Venue. Windermere is on a smaller scale than Loch Lomond the surrounding mountains are not so bold as the Scotch but beauty, fertility, cultiva- tion, and ornament, are more profusely scattered along the banks of the English than of the Caledonian waters. The roads, the inns, the pretty towns and neat cottages the cleanli- ness, comfort, and accommodation on every side, among the lakes of Westmoreland and Cumberland, are items not much prized by the adventurous tourists, or the Syntaxes in search of the sublime; but they are attractions of no mean power, with nine-tenths of those who * Whoever has experienced a wet squall on Ben-Lawers, Ben-Nevis, or even Ben- 1/omond, will remember it, and perhaps admit the adjective fiigorif;c as not entirely mis- applied. 206 THE ENGLISH LAKES. compose pleasure-parties. With an eye familiarized to the finest lakes and the finest scenery in the world, tropical and extra-tropical, I can safely say that the English lakes and mountains surpassed my expecta- tions, and excited nearly as much pleasure as those of Switzerland or Italy not because the British are similar to the continental, but because they have a cast and character of their own, differing consider- ably and agreeably from both Alpine and Highland scenery. Derwentwater is my favourite. It is surrounded with sublimity : by the fantastic mountains of Borrowdale to the south the solitary majesty of Skiddaw to the north the bold steeps of Waltow-crag and Lodore to the east and the clustering mountains of New-lands to the west. Great as is the annual concourse of visiters to these lakes, the wonder is, that it is not far greater. But the English fly to Lucerne, Como, and Geneva, before they are acquainted with the beauties of Ulsewater, Keswick, and Windermere. Mr. West, a Roman Catholic clergyman, who had spent much time abroad, makes the following judicious obser- vations : " They who intend to make the continental tour should begin here ; as it will give them, in miniature, an idea of what they are to meet with there, in traversing the Alps and Apennines; to which our northern mountains are not inferior in beauty of line, or variety of summit, number of lakes, and transparency of water not in colouring of rock, or softness of turf but in height and extent only. The mountains here are all accessible to the summit, and furnish prospects no less sur- prising, and with more variety than the Alps themselves. The tops of the highest Alps are inaccessible, being covered with everlasting snow, which, commencing at regular heights above the cultivated tracts, or wooded and verdant sides, form indeed the highest contrast in nature ; for there may be seen all the variety of climate in one view. To this, however, we oppose the sight of the ocean, from the summits of all the higher mountains, as it appears decorated with islands, and animated with navigation." It has been still better observed by Wordsworth, that nothing is more injurious to genuine feeling, than the practice of hastily and un- graciously depreciating the face of one country, by comparing it with that of another. Fastidiousness is a wretched companion and the best guide to which we can commit ourselves, in matters of taste, is a disposition to be pleased. Wlien among the Alps, let him give up his thoughts to, and feast his senses on, the roaring torrent, the glittering glacier, and the dazzling snow, without complaining of the monotony of their foaming course, or the muddiness of the waters. In Cumber- THE ENGLISH LAKES. 207 land and Westmoreland, let him not dwell on the comparative weakness of the streams, but contemplate and admire their unrivalled brilliancy, and that variety of motion, mood, and character, arising from the cir- cumstances in which they are placed, so different from those around the Alpine streams and lakes. And although the mountains are com- paratively small though there is little of perpetual snow no thunder of the avalanche, and few traces of elemental ravage yet out of this deficiency proceeds a sense of stability and safety, more grateful to many minds. But, as I have often had occasion to remark, the first and second-rate mountains, of fourteen and ten thousand feet, are often not so impressive as those of five, or even three thousand feet. The travel- ler, therefore, among the English and Scotch mountains, will find that an elevation of three or four thousand feet can call forth no inconsider- able sense of sublimity, which indeed depends more upon form and relation of subjects to each other, than upon actual magnitude or altitude. " I do not indeed know (says Wordsworth) any tract of country in which, within so narrow a compass, may be found an equal variety in the influences of light and shadow upon the sublime or beautiful features of landscape. From a point between Great Gavel and Scawfell, a shepherd would not require more than an hour to descend into any one of the eight principal vales by which he would be surrounded ; and all the others lie (with the exception of Hawswater) at but a small dis- tance. Yet, though clustered together, every valley has its distinct and separate character; in some instances, as if they had been formed in studied contrast to each other, and in others with the united pleasing differences and resemblances of a sisterly rivalship. This concentration of interest gives to the country a decided superiority over the most attractive districts of Scotland and Wales, especially for the pedestrian traveller." Although the lakes of England are on a smaller scale than those of other countries, they are not the less interesting on that account. In lakes of great extent, their shores cannot be all distinctly seen at the same time, and cannot, therefore, contribute to mutual illustration and ornament. The small size of the English lakes is favourable to the production of variegated landscape, their boundary line being, in most instances, gracefully or boldly indented. This is continually exempli- fied along the margins of these lakes. Masses of rock that have been precipitated from the mountains into the area of the waters, lie, in some places, like stranded ships in others, jut out like piers, or project in little peninsulae, crested with native wood. But although these lakes are placid, they arc not stagnant. From 208 THE ENGLISH LAKES. the multitude of brooks and torrents by which they are fed, and which circulate through them, they are justly entitled to the appellation of " LACUS vivi." Their waters are of crystalline purity and I can safely aver, that in no lake, even of fair Italy, have I seen fairy land- scape, of " banks, trees, and skies," so beautifully and faithfully re- flected as in the little lake of Grassmere. As we rode along the margin of the watery mirror, the following lines of the late wizard of the North, the poet of Nature recurred to my mind : " The lake return'd, in chasten'd gleam, The purple cloud, the golden beam : Reflected in the crystal pool, Headland and bank lay fair and cool ; The weather-tinted rock and tower, Each drooping tree, each fairy flower, So true, so soft the mirror gave, As if there lay beneath the wave, Secure from trouble, toil, and care, A world, than earthly world more fair." The climate, too, is more favourable for tourists, and especially for invalids, than that of either Ireland or Scotland. Although much more rain falls here than in most other parts of England, there are not so many clays of drizzling wet, as the southern, western, or northern por- tions of the island present, to " blot out the face of things." The rain here comes down heartily, and is soon succeeded by clear skies. Then every brook is vocal every torrent sonorous yet never muddy, even in the harvest floods. " Days of unsettled weather, with partial showers, are very frequent ; but the showers, darkening or brightening as they fly from hill to hill, are not less grateful to the eye than finely interwoven passages of gay and sad music are touching to the ear. Vapours exhaling from the lakes and meadows after sunrise, in a hot season, or, in moist weather, brood- ing upon the heights, or descending towards the valleys with inaudible motion, give a visionary character to every thing around them ; and are in themselves so beautiful, as to dispose us to enter into the feelings of those simple nations (such as the Laplanders of this day) by whom they are taken for guardian deities of the mountains ; or to sympathise with others who have fancied these delicate apparitions to be the spirits of their departed ancestors. Akin to these are fleecy clouds resting upon the hill-tops ; they are not easily managed in picture, with their accompaniments of blue sky ; but how glorious are they in nature ! how pregnant with imagination for the poet ! and the height of the Cumbrian mountains is sufficient to exhibit daily and hourly instances LIVERPOOL. 209 of those mysterious attachments. Such clouds, cleaving to their sta- tions, or lifting up suddenly their glittering heads from behind rocky barriers, or hurrying out of sight with speed of the eagle will often tempt an inhabitant to congratulate himself on belonging to a country of mists and clouds and storms, and make him think of the blank sky of Egypt, and of the cerulean vacancy of Italy, as an unanimated and even a sad spectacle*." The Lakes have long been the favourite seats of the poets though few of that genus have been remarkable for water drinking. As Lucus is said to be derived from " Non Lucendo,' 1 so the poets may consider LACCS as figurative of " Non bibendo." Wordsworth, Southey, Cole- ridge, Wilson, and de Quincy, figure among the principal lake poets, of recent times ; and their productions savour much more of the " moun- tain-dew," or brown stout, than of Adam's ale, the watery element of the lakes ! Wordsworth's " Excursion," by the way, is a desperate tough job. The ascent of Skiddaw, Helvellyn, or Scawfell, is child's play, compared with the Excursion ! If de Quincy had not commenced his mal-habit of opium-eating, for the tooth-ache, in Oxford-street, he might have enjoyed a less injurious sedative in an " excursion" among the Cumbrian mountains. But I must hasten from these fairy scenes, dragged by a tyrant spell, towards the southern vortex! To those who have, and to those who have not visited the lakes and mountains of Switzerland, Italy, Cam- bria, and Caledonia, I would recommend an excursion to those of Eng- land. The former class of visiters will not be disappointed; and the latter will be delighted. A tour through the Highlands will be no drawback to one through Westmoreland and Cumberland. The lakes and mountains of both countries are like the various members of one large family. " facies non omnibus una, Nee diversa tanicn; qualisdecct esse sororum." LIVERPOOL. On approaching this great emporium of commerce, from the pure and exhilarating breezes of the English lakes and mountains, and while passing along Dale-street, to the hotel, our olfactories were saluted with a compound of strange odours, such as I had never experienced in any other part of the world. As cholera was rife, some of the party became * Wordsworth. 210 LIVERPOOL. alarmed, lest we should be inhaling the mephitic effluvia of the " black death." But, on reconnoitring the locality, I became convinced that the source of the strange perfume had little to do with the epidemic. The dense mass of shipping that seemed an impenetrable forest between a broad river and a magnificent city and the long line of stupendous warehouses, in close proximity with the docks, containing immense deputs of every article of commerce which the four quarters of the globe could furnish, afforded a clue to the complication of smells that impreg- nated the atmosphere. Here we have exhalations from Mocha coffee and Virginian tobacco from the cloves of Banda and the cod-fish of Newfoundland from the cinnamon of Ceylon and the whiskey of Scotland from the rum-puncheons of Jamaica and the tar-barrels of Norway from the St. Michael orange and St. Petersburgh hemp from the olives of Lucca, and the onions of the Azores from the tea- chests of Canton and the pitch-casks of Pomerania from the brimstone of Solfaterra and the barilla of the Hebrides from the opium of Bengal and the herrings of Loch Fine from the nutmegs of the Celebes and the turpentine of the Canadas from the tamarinds of the Antilles and the train-oil of Greenland from the hops of Kent and the juniper of Holland from the log-wood of Honduras and the pine-planks of Sweden from the pepper of Sumatra and the cotton-bales of Bombay in short, from every species of odorous and mal-odorous materials that load the ships, line the quays, and crowd the warehouses of one of the greatest emporiums of commerce in the world. The Englishman who can traverse the almost interminable series of docks or rather of harbours hewn, literally as well as virtually, out of the solid rock, without experiencing strong emotions of surprise as well as pride, is insensible to the works of art and the wonders of wealth, from ignorance of what exists in other countries. The stranger can apprecinte these stupendous constructions, any one of which would contain, without inconvenience, the united commerce of ancient Venice or ancient Genoa ! docks, which daily cause the Frenchman to stare, the Dutch- man to weep, the Spaniard to sigh, and the Yankee to murmur. Livei*pool seems disposed to distinguish itself on its eastern as well as on its western bound : by a magnificent cemetery for its citizens' bones on one side by stupendous docks for its merchants' shipping on the other. The latter are more useful, if not more ornamental than the former. The almost universal desire to honour the dead, by the preservation of their bodies, or by monuments erected to their memory, must have some strong foundation in human nature. In some coun- tries, it was no doubt, connected with a religious principle in others, and I apprehend in most, with feelings of a less dignified nature with LIVERPOOL. 211 ties of love, affection, veneration, or esteem perhaps even with selfish- ness and vanity ! In Christian countries, it has little countenance from our religious faith. Few can believe that the same body will be raised incorruptible which was buried in corruption : and still fewer, that the frail tene- ment of clay can be preserved, by any human means, till the awful day of resurrection. What need is there of such preservation ? The same miracle the same power which calls us up into a new state of existence, requires not the aid of man to furnish materials for a new fabric. If the present rage for " pleasure-grounds," ornamental cemeteries, and Elysian fields for the DEAD, continues, a time must come when there will be little room for the LIVING ! Everybody knows the complaint of Cicero, that the Campagna of Rome was so taken up, in his time, with tombs, that there was no longer space for the construction of villas. There is room enough now ! The monuments of the dead have moul- dered away and the mansions of the living are not likely to replace them. Desolation, the emblem and the offspring of death, reigns there unmolested and uncontrolled. Whether the cheerful PERE-LA-CHAISE, with its gay parterres, its verdant bowers, its flowery walks, its storied urns and animated busts the delicious " green retreat " of our departed friends, on the Harrow road or the " painted sepulchre," sculptured and scooped out of the solid rock, at Liverpool, shall familiarize us with death, and cause us to fall in love with the grave, is more than I can tell. Neither dare I prognosticate what may be the ultimate effects, religious or moral, resulting from an extension of these elegant establishments for the defunct, throughout the kingdom. All I shall say is this, that it will be a great measure of REFORM if not in the Church itself, at least in certain lands thereunto belonging the CHURCH-YARDS. Some thou- sands of years hence, when what appears to us a grave revolution shall itself be buried in the mouldering annals of mortality, many passages in Gray's Elegy will require the comments of learned antiquarians, before their meaning can be deciphered. When the post mortem man- sions of posterity shall have rivalled our modern villas, many a reader will be puzzled by the following verse of the poet : " Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, "\Vith uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh!'' . Uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculptures ! Why, we shall have half an epic poem inscribed on each marble sarcophagus, and a Belvi- dere Apollo, or Metlicean Venus sculptured on every tombstone ! p 2 212 STEAM CARRIAGE RAIL-ROADS. But I must not leave Liverpool, without paying to its enterprising spirit, its commercial wealth, and its distinguished intelligence, the homage of a stranger, who has visited many a city and site of com- merce, " A Gadibus usque Auroram et Gangem ;" but never an equal to this if I except the metropolis of the British isles. Nature seems to have determined, many thousand years ago, that Liverpool should not be a commercial port : and to effect her design, she placed, at the mouth of its river, a congregation of shifting sands and dangerous channels, that might deter mankind, for ever, from attempting the navigation of such frightful Syrtes. But he has con- quered the dread, if not entirely the danger, of these quicksands ; and the Transatlantic sailor approaches them with as much confidence as he would sail up the inland ocean of the Chesapeake ! STEAM-CARRIAGERAIL-ROADS. Of all the wonders that steam has worked, this is the most wonderful. Without rudder or rein without tug or tow-rope without chart or compass without impulse from man, or traction from beast, this maximum of power in minimum of space this magic AUTOMATON, darts forward, on iron pinions, swift as an arrow from a bow ; unerring, un- deviating from its destined course ! Devised by science, but devoted to industry unwearied as rapid, in its toils and movements harmless as the dove, if unopposed, but fatal as the thunderbolt, if encountered in its career, this astonishing offspring of human genius, gigantic in strength as dwarfish in stature, drags along, and apparently without effort, whole cargoes of commerce merchants and their merchandize artizans and their arts travellers and their traffic tourists and their tours (some of them heavy enough!) in short, every thing, living or dead, that can be chained to the train of this Herculean velocipede ! Mounted on the shoulders of this docile but all-powerful AUTOMATON, we " scour the blasted heath," more fleetly than the Weird Sisters, when despatched on deeds of death dive through the solid rock, which greets the passing stranger with a hollow and growling salute spring forward into the cheerful day and wave our sable banners in the air. The steam-carriage will probably effect more revolutions in military operations, than the steam-boat in naval warfare. A steam-carriage STEAM-CARRIAGE RAIL-ROADS. 213 skilfully equipped and directed, would have broken through the hollow squares on the field of Waterloo opened a passage for Napoleon's cavalry and changed the face of battle, as well as the fate of nations. The war-chariots of our ancient English queen (Boadicea) may pos- sibly be renewed and introduced, under some future princess and with more success, since they will, not only transport whole armies, with all their materiel, from point to point, with incredible velocity, but pene- trate the densest lines, the firmest cohorts, the compactest squadrons, with as much certainty and ease, as a cannon ball would pass through a partition of pasteboard. A greater mass of men, arms, and ammunition could be defiled along the Manchester rail-road in one day, than along the Via Appia in a month, with Julius Caesar to direct the expedition, and the fate of Rome dependent on the celerity of its movements ! But it is more pleasing to contemplate the effects of the steam-car- riage in peace. By increasing the facilities of intercommunication, we multiply the products of human labour, mental as well as corporeal, and reduce their price. The steam-carriage lessens the distance (or the TIME, which is tantamount) between the inhabitants of a state, and thereby converts, as it were, a country into a city. By this kind of artificial approximation, we secure all the good effects of combination, without the detrimental consequences of a concentrated population. By it, Liverpool and Manchester are constituted one city, as regards all kinds of communication and commerce, while a fertile tract of thirty miles is placed between them. The intercommunication, by steam, will enable us to change many millions of meadow into fields of wheat and the provender of horses will be converted into food for man*. * Every improvement in science and political economy, will be denounced by the " Laudatores temporis acti," the advocates of ancestral wisdom. The Manchester rail- road, say they, will supersede the labour of two or three hundred horses ! What a na- tional calamity ; especially when it is recollected that the said rail-road gives employ- ment to treble that number of men ! The same argument is applicable to all rail-roads, and all abbreviations of muscular labour, whether of man or animals. But there is hardly a doubt that the present'mania for rail-roads will be the ruin of thousands of im- prudent speculators. Rail-roads can only succeed in a limited number of favourable localities. In all England there is no locality so favourable for this mode of transport as the space between Manchester and Liverpool. It is extremely problematical whether the great lines of northern and western roads will repay the expense of rail-ways. Many lines at present projected, will be almost certain failures. The common steam-car- riage, however, for ordinary roads, is likely to become much more general than rail-way steamers. As neither of the modes of transport are calculated to abridge the labour of man, but only of horses, they cannot but prove beneficial to the country provided spe- culation does not overstock the market. 214 STEAM-CARRIAGE RAIL-ROADS. Having passed and repassed between Liverpool and Manchester, several times, and in the different classes of conveyance, I marked accu- rately the phenomena of this most astonishing effort of human ingenuity, to abridge labour and save time. When the train is at full speed say thirty or more miles in the hour the sensations and the noise, pro- duced by the vibrations of the machinery and the rotation of so many wheels, resemble a good deal those which would result from a troop of horse at full gallop, but all the animals in the most perfect unison of action and motion. Neither the vibrations, the sounds, nor the sight of surrounding objects, convey any unpleasant feeling to the passenger : on the contrary, to me, they communicated an exceedingly pleasurable sensation, but of a nature that cannot be described in words*. The most disagreeable circumstance in the conveyance, occurs at the moment when the check is given to the engine, preparatory to each halt. At that instant, every carriage strikes against its neighbour, so that a general collision takes place along the whole line, communicating a kind of electric shock to the passengers. To this, however, we soon get accustomed, and the collision is greatly diminished by the intervention of springs to break the force of the shock. Although the whole passage between Liverpool and Manchester is a series of enchantments, surpassing any in the " Arabian Nights," be- cause they are realities not fictions ; yet there are certain epochs in the transit, which are peculiarly exciting. These are, the starlings the ascents the descents the tunnels the Chat-moss the meetings. At the instant of starting, or rather before, the AUTOMATON belches forth an explosion of steam, and seems, for a second or two, quiescent. But quickly the explosions are reiterated, with shorter and shorter in- tervals, till they become too rapid to be counted, though still distinct, These belchings or explosions more nearly resemble the pantings of a lion or a tiger, than any sound that has ever vibrated on my ear. Dur- ing the ascent, they become slower and slower, till the AUTOMATON ac- tually labours like an animal out of breath, from the tremendous efforts to gain the highest point of the elevation. The progression is propor- tionate ; and before the said point is gained, the train is not moving faster than a horse could pace. With the slow motion of the mighty and animated machine, the breathing becomes more laborious the growl more distinct till, at length, the animal appears exhausted, and * All rapid movements through the air are productive of a mixture of pleasing as well as of disagreeable sensations. The swing offers an illustration familiar to us all. When the o^pillutions are moderate, pleasure is the result when immoderate, they occa- sion pain. How applicable is this rule to moral as veil as physical enjoyments ! STEAM-CARRIAGE RAIL-ROAUS. 215 groans like the tiger when nearly overpowered in -combat by the buf- falo*. The moment that the height is reached, and the descent commences, the pan tings rapidly increase the engine, with its train, starts off with augmenting velocity, and, in a few seconds, it is flying down the decli- vity like lightning, and with a uniform growl or roar, like a continuous discharge of distant artillery. At this period, the whole train is going at the rate of thirty-five or forty miles an hour ! I was on the outside, and in front of the first carriage, just over the engine. The scene was magnificent, I had almost said, terrific. Although it was a dead calm, the wind appeared to be blowing a hurricane, such was the velocity with which we darted through the air. Yet all was steady ; and there was something in the precision of the machinery that inspired a degree of confidence over fear of safety over danger. A man may travel from the Pole to the Equator from the Straits of Malacca to the Isthmus of Darien, and he will see nothing so astonishing as this. The pangs of Etna and Vesuvius excite feelings of horror as well as of terror the con- vulsion of the elements, during a thunder storm, carries with it nothing of pride, much less of pleasure, to counteract the awe inspired by the fearful workings of perturbed nature ; but the scene which is here pre- sented, and which I cannot adequately describe, engenders a proud con- sciousness of superiority in human ingenuity, more intense and convin- cing, than any effort or product of the poet, the painter, the philosopher, or the divine. The projections or transits of the train through the tun- nels and arches, are very electrifying. The deafening peal of thunder, the sudden immersion in gloom, and the clash of reverberated sounds in confined space, combine to produce a momentary shudder, or idea of destruction ; a thrill of annihilation, which is instantly dispelled on emerging into the cheerful light. The meetings or crossings of the steam trains, flying in opposite directions, are scarcely less agitating to the nerves, than their transits through the tunnels. The velocity of their course, the propinquity, or apparent identity of the iron orbits along which these meteors move, call forth the involuntary, but fearful thought of a possible collision, with all its horrible consequences ! The period of suspense, however, though exquisitely painful, is but momentary ; and, in a few seconds, the object of terror is far out of sight behind. Nor is the rapid passage across the CnAT-Mos$, unworthy of notices The ingenuity with which two narrow rods of iron are made to bear * Those who have witnessed a pitched battle between the tiger and buffalo in Bengal, will understand what I mean. 216 STEAM-CARRIAGE RAIL-ROADS. whole trains of waggons, laden with many hundred tons of commerce, and bounding across a wide semi-fluid morass, previously impassable by man or beast, is beyond all praise, and deserving of eternal record. Only conceive a slender bridge, of two minute iron rails, several miles in length, level as Waterloo, elastic as whalebone, yet firm as adamant ! Along this splendid triumph of human genius this veritable via tri- umphalis the train of carriages bounds with the velocity of the stricken deer ; the vibrations of the resilient moss causing the ponderous engine and its enormous suite to glide along the surface of an extensive quag- mire as safely as a practised skater skims the icy mirror of a frozen lake! The first class or train is the most fashionable, but the second and third are the most amusing. I travelled one day from Liverpool to Manchester in the lumber train. Many of the carriages were occupied by the swinish multitude, and others by a multitude of swine. These last were, " neat as imported," from the Emerald Isle, and therefore were naturally vociferous, if not eloquent. It Avas evident that the other passengers would have been considerably annoyed by the ORATORS of this last group, had there not been stationed in each carriage, an offi- cer, somewhat analogous to the usher of the black rod, but whose desig- nation on the rail-road, I found to be " COMPTROLLER of the GAMMON." No sooner did one of the long-faced gentlemen raise his note too high, or wag his jaw too long, than the " Comptroller of the Gammon" gave him a whack over the snout, with the butt end of his shillelagh a snubber which never failed to stop his oratory for the remainder of the journey ! It is to be hoped that so valuable a discovery will not be overlooked by a reformed Parliament; and that a " COMPTROLLER of the GAMMON" will henceforth be a standing, certainly not a sinecure office, in St. Stephen's. Probably an amateur or fancy operator of this kind may be found among the representatives themselves, who will volunteer to fill the office. To conclude. Even in its present infancy of improvement, the steam-carriage, on the rail-road, appears to me to be a safer vehicle than the stage-coach. The rapid rate of driving, occasioned by competition, renders the outside of a coach dangerous, while the inside is disagreeable and fatiguing. The spirit of the horse can never be tempered to the precision of machinery and steam. MIDLAND MOVEMENTS. 217 MIDLAND MOVEMENTS. Strong excitement is naturally followed by exhaustion or languor. The gyrations of the spinning-jennies in Glasgow and Lanark kept my brain in a state of vertigo, till I ascended Skiddaw, and contemplated the magnificent panorama of nature, in a temperature little above the freezing point. Between Liverpool and Manchester, our velocipede movements caused such a state of sensorial excitement, that I dared not even to reconnoitre the immeasurable FACTORY-SYSTEM, where ten mil- lion of orbs were perpetually whirling round the grand centre of calico and cotton ! There is a good deal also in names, as influencing the imagination. How would Manchester or Birmingham sound, as the title or theatre of an heroic poem ? I do not deny that some striking scenes might be worked up between the weavers and knife-grinders of these great towns or that the trades' unions might turn out a corps d'armee little inferior in numbers to the Grecian " Unions " on the plains of Troy. But the atmosphere of Manchester was so impregnated with the miasmata of manufacture, that the body was all for work, and the mind rendered incapable of exertion! Fearing, therefore, that Manchester might prove a cave of Trophonius or that its ale and porter might act like the waters of Lethe, and cause oblivion of all I had seen and heard on the tour, I made a precipitate retreat, and posted off for Derby. As we approach BUXTON, the road, for many miles, is a continued ascent, till at length a cold, dreary, inhospitable region is attained, as frigid as Skiddaw. Buxton itself is situated in a slight depression of the mountainous summit ; and it is very fortunate that VULCAN has placed one of his forges under the town, to supply its kettles and tea- urns with boiling water for the use of strangers. This is a wonderful place. The cold winds give you rheumatism and the hot waters cure you of it ! Not wanting or wishing for either the disease or the remedy, I left Buxton without giving Sir Charles Scudamore a fee, or parboiling my body in one of his stew-pans. I soon arrived at a place far more to my taste than BUXTON, namely, MATLOCK. This is most beautifully situated in a winding dell, through which a fine river (the DERWENT) runs, its banks clothed with wood, behind which, the white rocks of marble and limestone tower almost perpendicularly to various heights, from fifty to five hundred feet, assuming all kinds of fantastic shapes. Matlock is clustered on the right bank of the river, and partly perched on ledges, terraces, and 218 MIDLAND MOVEMENTS. BIRMINGHAM. slopes of rock embowered in little groves and woods, protected from all winds and forming one of the most romantic and delightful retreats that invalids could possibly select. I had rather live in Matlock, if its wines were all water, than in Buxton, if its waters were all wine. BIRMINGHAM. However it may be in respect to learning and science generally, ENG- LAND is the only country in the world that has taken out a regular degree as MASTER of ARTS a degree not acquired in the retirement and solitude of " academic bowers and learned halls ;" but amidst the clattering of hammers, the roaring of furnaces, the clanking of engines, and the grating of files. England has not been cursed and impoverished by mines of gold and silver ! The sooty entrails of Northumbria are worth all the gems of Golconda and the mines of Peru. The English, and especially the mechanics of Birmingham, par excellence, are the only people who have discovered the philosopher's stone the only real alchymists! With two elements, abundantly supplied by the skies above, and by the earth below water and fire these ingenious and industrious islanders can transmute, with unparalleled celerity, the basest metals into the most precious commodities many of them more valuable than their weight in gold commodities that are envied, coveted, and imitated by every race of people, from Pekin to Cincinnati from Otaheite to Iceland. Their muskets gleam and their bayonets bristle on every battle-field in the world : their heraldry may therefore be proud, for their arms are emblazoned on the four quarters of the globe. That dense canopy of smoke, exhaled from every point of England's surface, and deepening the gloom of her cloudy atmosphere those volumes of carbonaceous vapour, so offensive to the senses of foreigners - may well be England's pride; for they emanate from the source of England's power, and England's wealth. Britain will never be excelled in arts and in arms till her skies become as blue as those of Greece and Italy. I have already alluded to BILSTON. It is one of the most singular localities which I have ever witnessed. Had Hesiod, Virgil, Ovid, or Milton, passed through BitsxoN in a dark night, they would have been furnished with excellent materials for a picture of Tartarus. Far as the eye can range, in every direction, the earth is belching forth fire, the air is lurid with flame, while the continued roar of the blast-fur- naces resembles what one would imagine to result from the destructive 3ENII.WORTH. 210 torrent of the burning Phlegethon, consuming everything that lay in its course ! How human lungs can breathe such an ignited atmosphere, loaded as it is with mephitic gases and carbonaceous vapour, I know not ! I should very much doubt whether a colony of salamanders would long exist in this " torrid zone:" The punishments of Ixion, the Danaides, and Sisyphus, were trivial to those of the smelters in Bilston ! The fact of that arch-fiend CHOLERA having ventured into this volcanic, or, at all events, Vulcanic region, where he reaped an abundant harvest, might have taught our Scotch and English doctors the futility of attempting to smoke him out, by fumigations of gun- powder, tar, and chloride of lime ! ! After a campaign in Bilston, they might as well have tried to exorcise this enemy of mankind by means of ottar of roses or eau de Cologne ! It may naturally be asked, " How do the inhabitants live here?" The convicts in the Pontine fens have given the answeis long ago " We do not live, we die here." Be this as it may, Bilston and Birmingham give life and death to the people of every nation and tongue on the face of this globe ! They supply knives, forks, and all kinds of culinary implements for dressing and carving their food not forgetting swords, daggers, and muskets to thin the population, on more efficient principles of political economy than were ever enumerated by Malthus and Martineau. KENILWORTH. We now arrived in a place where there are four grand sights the bones of the mammoth a fine living elephant a cameleopard and a tame lioness. These are, the ruins of KENILWORTH Warwick Castle Guy's Cliff and Stoneleigh Abbey. They are all situated within an easy ride of that nourishing fountain of Hygeia LEAMINGTON SPA. They are all worthy of a visit by every one who can venture to be eight or ten hours out of the hands of Dr. Loudon or Dr. Jephson. Not being in want of physic from either of these sons of Esculapius, I roamed about, and viewed the lions for a day or two, making Leamington my head-quarters but preferring beef and wine to salt and water *. * The master of the BATH HOTKL has a keen eye. Having travelled outside of the mail, " ut mos est," to use the words of Horace, he detected my descent from the box- seat, and soon gave me my mittimus, when I solicited permission to sleep under his roof 1 No, no. Outside passengers in the coach, are always outside lodgers at this hotel ! I would advise this clever fellow not to trust too much to externals. In my own case, he probably judged right in supposing me a scurvy outside passenger, not fit for the interior of his hotel; but, on other occasions, he may overshoot the mark, and do his establishment some injury. Perbum sat. 220 KENILWORTH. Though in excellent health, I perceived that my glass was nearly run and this melancholy reflection led me to contemplate only one of the four lions, with sufficient interest to have a place in my evening reflec- tions. This lion was, of course, the scene of a splendid novel from the pen of the Northern Wizard. Of the few ruins which yet totter on the soil of Great Britain, those of Kenilworth Castle are not the least calculated to afford some idea of feudal splendour and haronial hospitality. The Baths of Caracalla or Dioclesian are more stupendous in architecture, and perhaps not inferior in extent. But they were the productions and property, not merely of emperors, but of empires ; whereas Kenilworth belonged to a subject to an English earl, and spread its towers, courts, and battlements over seven acres of ground, being capable of feasting and lodging the court of Elizabeth, and half the county in which it stood. Sir Walter Scott has acknowledged that the tower over one of its gates, and which is yet standing, is equal in size, and superior in architecture, to the generality of chieftain castles in Scotland ; and no one can stand on Cresar's Tower or other elevated portion of the remains of Kenilworth, without gazing in astonishment at the gigantic ruins around him, and feeling himself bewildered in the attempt to form any clear conception of the original magnificent pile, ere the hand of time had hurled its loftiest turrets to the ground, shivered its towers of strength, prostrated its mighty walls in the dust, and mantled its venerable fragments with the verdant and friendly ivy. But the wand of the magician has waved over this spot, and marvellous are the resuscitations and transformations that have ensued ! Not only has the scythe of Time been broken by the Wizard's rod, and its devastations arrested ; but the stream of Time itself has been rebuked, and rolled back for three centuries, by a second Prospero, now no more, of whom it may be said, as of Shakspearc, that " Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toii'd after him in vain." At the nod of this magician, the wreaths of ivy fade away, like mists before the rising sun and, painted as distinctly as the banks of Gias- mere on the watery mirror beneath, we see the towers of Kenilworth rise in all their majesty the gigantic walls stretch their embattled and protecting arms around gardens, parterres, base-courts, castles, keeps of " uncertain antiquity," and all the appendages of feudal sovereignty while, beyond the walls, the eye wanders over lake and forest, corn- field and meadow, chase grounds and hamlets, till earth and sky blend into an indistinct line of far distant horizon. KENILWORTH. 221 But what are these panoramic pictures of inanimate life (to use a paradoxical expression) compared with the glowing portraits that start into existence before us, at the signal of the Conjurer ? We gee the maiden and majestic queen, with no small share of Henry the Eighth's hoiling and merciless blood flowing through her veins, and blazing with jewels, advance, on a milk-white palfrey, surrounded by her courtiers, and entering the portals of her favourite's castle or seated on her throne, and listening to the flattery of sycophants, or the amorous sighs of Leicester conferring equal rank on the infamous Varney and gallant Raleigh or dragging the petrified Amy Robsart from her retreat in the grotto or finally bursting with rage and mortified pride at hearing the confession of "her favourite earl ! From the stately queen, the mental eye fixes itself on the lord of the mansion, all gold and smiles without all despair and hell-born passion within ! Then comes the mistress of the castle, without a corner to lay her head, without a chamber to re- pose her wearied limbs : deserted by him who was her natural protec- tor, and protected by him, whom she herself had deserted ! Tressilian, the rejected lover but the firm friend, passes in review. We see him fight and fall but an unseen arm arrests that w r hich was directing the deadly blow against a.\i honest heart. In the vivid but tumultuous scene, the diabolical Varney frequently crosses the path of our mental vision the arch imp, Flibbertigibbet, drops, like an acorn, from a tree, into the busy crowd, and is all activity and honest Wayland is fol- lowed by the sigh of regret, w hen thrust forth from the portals of Kenil- worth ! The shriek of Amy Robsart thrills on the ear from Mervyn's Bower, and while the victim of villany and ambition is torn from the presence of her sovereign, and the halls of her husband, we are tempted to accuse Heaven itself of injustice, in not throwing down the bolt of vengeance on that worst of devils MAN ! A solemn pause ensues a strange crash is heard innocence is mur- dered and the murderer basks again in the sunshine of his queen and her court ! The point of the Conjurer's wand now falls to the earth, and the twilight between the w r orld of imagination and reality gradually changes into darkness. The fairy vision vanishes into air and we wake from our revery, and look around on what was so recently the theatre of splendour, passion, and action, we see nothing but the ivy-mantled and tottering ruins of Kenilworth, scattered over many a rood of ground, in silence and in solitude ! Yet the impression left on the mind by the drama which has flitted away, is accompanied, not merely by a sense of pain and sorrow, but by something little short of indignation at the striking breach of poetical 222 KENILWORTH. justice, and, what is worse, the total inattention to moral retribution, exemplified in the transactions still freshen the tablet of memory. That Amy Robsart, without a crime, and almost without a fault, should be condemned to the ennui of a splendid prison, and the torture of " Hope deferred" to the neglect of a husband, whom she loved, the importuni- ties of a villain whom she abhorred to meditation on a tender father in sickness and sorrow, and a respected lover in despair all to end in a merciless and cruel death is indeed a consummation which Satan himself could Tiardly contemplate without some surprise as well as satis- faction ! But when we add to this, that the prime mover of all these sufferings, horrors, and atrocities, is raised (I had almost said thereby) to the summit of power and ambition, the heart sickens and revolts at a termination which Heaven could scarcely permit, if man were capable of the attempt. It is a poor consolation that some of the subordinate agents in wicked- ness suffer at the conclusion of the drama. Even here there is nothing like justice in the distribution of punishment. The drunken Lam- bourne dies by a shot, without antecedent remorse, or lingering pain. The fiend of hell, Varney, dies at his ease, by a dose ofprussic acid, and without a pang ; while the unwilling accessory, the miserly Foster, led on by his avarice to a participation in guilt which he would never have voluntarily committed, expires in the most protracted and horrible tor- tures that ever terminated the existence of human being* ! But it may be urged that the romance writer is justified by history, which too often shows that, on this side of the grave, there is not always retributive justice, and " That vice may triumph, virtue vice obey." I grant that, with the facts of history', we should not tamper ; but when we soar into the regions of fiction, if we do not reward virtue, we ought, at least, to punish vice first, because it is evidently in consonance with the laws of God and man and secondly, because I believe that punish- ment, mental or corporeal, very generally follows the commission of crime even in this world. Little credence, however, will be given to * It may be a lesson to authors that even a London audience would not tolerate the winding up of the drama of KeniUvorth, and the managers were obliged to let Varney fall through the t trap bridge laid for the destruction of the countess, while the latter escaped ! So again, in the Bride of Lammermoor, that hell-cat, Lady Ashton, who hatches every kind of mischief, and brings so many innocent people to their graves (including her own daughter) attains extreme old age, without bodily suffering or mental anguish! Surely this is neither poetical, historical, nor moral justice. I KENILWORTH. 223 this creed, especially by those who see retribution only in the axe, the gibbet, the dungeon, the workhouse, or some of the outward and tan- gible signs of vengeance, human or divine. But those who have wit- nessed man in his last struggles with inward conscience and outward bearing, are aware of the amount of misery which follows, unobserved by the multitude, the evil deed and haunts, with midnight horrors, the consciousness of guilt ! Whether sufferings be estimated by their inten- sity or duration, it is certain that the stroke of death and the various other penalties of the law, compose but a small portion of the great " criminal code" enacted by divine wisdom, and executed with unerring justice even here below * ! But this is not a time or place for sermonising, though the fragments of fallen greatness and withered ambition that are scattered around, might well excite, and may well excuse the few moral reflections on which I have ventured. CHELTENHAM. When Esculapius left this earth, it is uncertain whether he ascended or descended whether he removed to the higher or the lower regions. The same uncertainty attaches to the departure of many other eminent personages. Be this as it may, the God of Health, as well as the Goddess Hygeia, have dispensed their favours to mankind from both the earth and the skies. It is over the great subterranean laboratories that man has chiefly erected temples to the god and goddess ; and Cheltenham exhibits the worship of these divinities on the grandest scale. * The-e sentiments are not discordant with those which I have broached at page 154 of this volume. I have there acknowledged that crimes draw after them, in this world, " certain moral and physical punishments,'' but that the balance of vice and virtue will be struck in another world. If no punishment of body or mind were to attend on guilt in this world, the disbelievers in a future state of existence would have no check, but that of human laws, on their iniquitous propensities : but the Almighty has wisely or- dained that the guilty shall tate of punishment even here, where the wickedness has been perpetrated : not by Divine interference on each particular occasion, by the natural operation of those moral and physical laws which the Creator established at man's first creation or rather at his fall. 224 PUMP-ROOM AT CHELTENHAM. THE PUMP-ROOM. The fixed population of this thriving town consists almost entirely of a great JOINT-STOCK COMPANY for scouring complexions, and darning holes in the human constitution. Hence it is resorted to from all parts of the British dominions. It is a superb " house of recovery," or MAISON DE SANTE, for convalescents from the capital and the colonies < a splendid ESTABLISHMENT for killing TIME, and curing liver-com- plaints for dispelling vapours, and drowning blue-devils ! Here we find the miraculous pool of Bethesda, for cleansing lepers nay, the wonder-working fountains of Hygeia, all numbered and labelled, for expurgating the four humours of the ancients, besides a great many other bad humours engendered among th6 moderns, and unknown, even by name, to our forefathers. There stands a blanched and formal personage, with nankeen coun- enance, swilling goblet after goblet, of No. 4 It is a factor from Whampoa, endeavouring to wash away the taste of that celebrated leaf which he has chewed for twenty years (during each " season ") at Canton, to guide the sales in Leadenhall-street, and direct the taste of Europe and America. It will be some time, I imagine, before these waters restore natural gusto to his tongue, and healthy tone to his nerves ! He has wisely preferred the pump-room of Cheltenham to the Cave of Camoens at Macao the triste conversation, even of hypochon- driacs, to the pompous edicts of mandarins the mutton of Cambria to the birds'-nest soup of the Philippines the malt of old England to the samsoo of the celestial empire the silver forks of his native land to the slippery chop-sticks of the Hong-merchants. On the right of the SUPERCARGO, and equally thirsty of No. 4, behold the NABOB from Bengal, with mullieatawny complexion double allow- ance of liver, but only half-ration of appetite with full purse, but empty stomach with high notions, but very low spirits ! He lias plucked the fruit of the blighted pagoda tree and behold the withering effects ! He has breathed the fiery atmosphere, and swallowed the pungent spices of the East, till he is as shrivelled as a mummy, and yellow as curry-powder ! He sighed for his native land when he was on a foreign shore and now he regrets the loss of Asiatic luxuries on a soil which he scarcely recognizes as his own ! This is one of the many miseries attendant upon a long expatriation from the land of our birth. Every one may hope, but few need expect to realize in the north those dreams of happiness which are engendered beneath a vertical sun in the south, after that luminary has rolled, for twenty years, over his head, and shed its baleful influence over mind and bodv ! PUMP-ROOM AT CHELTENHAM. 225 Who is that pale, melancholy, and musing figure, who paces the pump-room in muttering soliloquy ? It is the disappointed politician, who has shattered his health in defence of rotten boroughs or tampered with his own constitution while tinkering that of the state ! Whether Whig or Tory, it is evident, from his soured look, that he has lost his seat. But he is likely to be soon again returned not indeed by the sheriff, to the Commons' House of Parliament but by the sexton, to that larger house of commons, whose members are not liable to come into collision with the upper house, till the final and general election, where bribery and oratory will be of no avail. We are told by the poet that "The paths of glory lead but to the grave." Has poet or philosopher, physician or divine, pointed out a path that leads to any other goal ? No ! As all roads then terminate in one common destination, he who seeks the smoothest and most pleasant, is perhaps the wisest traveller. It is in the power of few, indeed, to com- mand a velvet route but many plunge into the morass, or climb the giddy cliff, rather than pursue the common and straightforward path of life. Panting up the shady walk that leads to the Montpellier Spa, behold that moving mountain, with copper-coloured nose and protuberant abdomen. He is a rich boroughmonger, who is come to Cheltenham, hoping to dispose of one particular corporation, which has never made him any profitable returns, and is now become a dead weight on his hands ! He certainly has a right to " do as he likes with his own." In his wake, follows a tall, emaciated, sun-burnt invalid, with a most rueful countenance. And no wonder ! His sugar-canes were suddenly, and by some evil eye, metamorphosed into sour-krout, his rum-puncheons into water-casks and, worst of all, his niggers into neophytes ! Nothing could exhibit a greater contrast than the preceding and suc- ceeding sacrificers at this shrine of Hygeia! A very great lady slowly advanced between a duke on one side, and a doctor on the other. Her metamorphoses were very different from those of the poor Caribbean planter. In one night, her water-melons were changed into golden pippins her billet-douxs into bank-notes her stage sandals into silver slippers her farthings into crowns and her crowns into coronets! This residence at a watering-place was a sufficient refutation of the scandalous insinuation that this amiable lady laboured under that ter- rible disease HYDROPHOBIA. I was rather startled at seeing, close to me, a noted HIGHWAY-MAN now so rare a character in this country. He was an old acquaintance Q 226 PUMP-ROOM AT CHELTENHAM. of mine had often thrown dust in my eyes but never demanded my purse. I asked Mr. MacAdam what he was doing at the Spa? " Watering the roads," said the facetious granite-pounder" and much need have my primce vi< of a sprinkling from Thompson's pumps." Sauntering slowly in one of the shady walks, my attention was rivetted on a gaunt and pallid personage, with a most singular countenance, in which there was strong expression, but of what character I could not form the most distant idea, though a physiognomist from my infancy. He held a sprig of birch in his hand ; and I thought I saw flashes of satire, if not cynicism, playing about his eyes and mouth. I did not apply to my cicerone, till I had exhausted all my ingenuity for a solution of the living enigma that paced solemnly before us. I gave it up in despair. " That personage," said my friend, " may well arrest your observation. He was formerly an eminent schoolmaster, but is now the superintendent of a most extensive establishment for the re- ception of lunatics. None but the insane, with their doctors and keepers, domiciliate in his asylum. The former class lose their senses, of course, before they apply for admission and their property is pretty sure to share the same fate as their reason ! The doctors and keepers, however, have acquired great renown by the number of cures which they perform. Their practice is strictly depletory consisting, almost exclusively, of bleeding, purging, and starvation. It is ' kill or cure ' with these practitioners. If the patient survives the remedial process, his mental delusion is pretty sure to disappear. Relapses are rare ; and if they do occur, the patient seldom re-enters the asylum in Chancery- lane. The doctors and keepers of this establishment are exceedingly numerous ; and between them and their superintendent, there is not the most perfect harmony. They accuse him of leaning to the side of the insane multitude, and of wishing to restrain the salutary practice of depletion which had proved so successful under his predecessor. But what is more personally offensive in his conduct is this he frequently applies his birch-BROOM to the backs of the doctors and keepers, instead of the shoulders of the madmen who are confined in his asylum. Within that emaciated and sickly frame, there is an immortal tenant of gigantic power a spirit of light or of darkness, that will tend very much to illuminate this globe, or reduce it to a cinder !" My attention was strongly attracted to a tall and venerable person- age, grey with years, blanched with cares, and " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," standing in profound meditation, with a goblet of the strongest chalybeate before him. If the emotions of the mind could be guessed at by the expression of the countenance, there were feelings of pride not unmixed with mortification of joy not unalloyed by sor- PUMP-ROOM AT CHELTENHAM. 227 row of triumph not untinctured with apprehension. I eagerly in- quired who he was. He is, said my friend, one of those few and fortu- nate mortals who, having dedicated a long life to the pursuit of an object which many considered as visionary, and more as destructive, at length attained all that he wished, and more perhaps than he wanted. Like Phaeton when guiding the chariot of the sun, or rather like a magician who conjures up a spirit which he finds it difficult to coerce, the arm of the wizard trembles under the weight of a slender wand, and the startled necromancer half regrets the success of his potent spell ! But the very expression of anxiety is an evidence of philanthropy ; and the patriotic benevolence, which even his enemies accord to him, will, it is hoped, be crowned with the realization of the statesman's wishes and his country's welfare. I was greatly surprised, on turning into one of the pump-rooms, to meet an old acquaintance " a fellow of infinite wit," whose humorous sallies for ever set the table in a roar a veritable YORICK drinking salt and water at Cheltenham ! This exceeded all credibility ! I would have been less astonished to see '' The Parthian and the German climates change, Tliis Arar drink, and that near Tigris range" than Yorick substituting Cheltenham waters for Champaigne and Tokay ! I asked for a solution of the metamorphosis. " You must know," said Yorick, " that the vile influenza, last spring, nearly made a hole in my lungs, and the doctors ordered me Pindar's Greek prescrip- tion in the pump-room at Bath *. The remedy was terrible ; but the disease was dangerous. Here I am, consoling myself with the averment of Bernardine de St. Pierre, that " all contrasts produce harmonies " and also with the hope that, by means of the curious ' sayings and doings ' going on in this fashionable place, I shall be able to work a miracle yet, before Christmas namely, to convert water into wine and Thompson's salts into generous Burgundy." " Vale et benedicite," said I. " But take care, my friend, that you do not afterwards reverse the process and turn your wine into water ; for then ' Brandy won't save you.' " A tall gentleman, with two ladies, (apparently his wife and daughter,) advanced to the pump, and each drank off a goblet of the medicinal waters. There was a peculiar unhealthiness in the aspect of these three individuals, which attracted my notice. It differed from the half- * Implying, " Water is best." Q 2 228 PUMP-ROOM AT CHELTENHAM. jaundiced sallowness of the Anglo-Indian invalid and also from the pallid and faded complexion of the fashionable and dissipated SEASONERS of the metropolis. It had a sickliness, sui generis, and beyond my power of analysis. As soon as they began to converse with each other, I recognised the accent of the Emerald Isle and this increased my wonder. I applied to my medical CICERONE for information. " That gentleman," said lie, " is a great landlord and squire in the county of , Ireland. His numerous tenantry are ignorant, and therefore semi- savage disagreeable to the eyes of the fashionable family ; and there- fore, perhaps, somewhat dangerous. Under these circumstances, it was opportunely discovered that the health of a daughter was delicate, and that the climate of Ireland was damp that the skies of Italy were bright the society there recherche and expenses very little more than in Castle Rackrent. The conduct to be pursued admitted of no ques- tion. The bailiff was ordered to collect the rents, and the courier was ordered to prepare for the journey. Paris was visited the Simplon was scaled and Florence, Rome, and Naples were explored. Years passed away on the classic soil, and yet curiosity was not sated, nor pleasure exhausted. But, on a fine summer's evening, while the family were sitting on the heights of Albano, inhaling the balmy zephyrs, and enjoying the superb panorama of the Campagna, with its scattered ruins and surrounding Apennines, one of the young ladies inspired the deadly poison that so often floats on the fragrance of Italian gales ! The tide of happiness, like that of fortune, has its affluxes and effluxes. The current of affliction now took its turn. The hapless and innocent victim of an Italian climate, (to speak of nothing else,) fevered, faded, and ultimately sunk beneath the pestiferous influence of the syren soil ! Her spirit fled to Heaven her mortal remains lie on the banks of the Tyber, near the pyramid of Caius Cestius *. " The long-inhaled poison of Italian malaria the heart-rending scenes attendant on the protracted sufferings of the beautiful girl and feelings, which are best known to the unhappy survivors, have produced the frightful ravages in the minds and bodies of the party before you, which have rivetted your attention. The waters of Lethe may, but those of Cheltenham never can, wash out the mental and corporeal suf- ferings cf that wretched TRIO." The next figure that attracted my eye, was a stout and well-bronzed Caledonian, who was busily employed in calculating the grains of sul- * This is no imaginary picture. It is only a specimen from a large class. See the ' Three Years' Residence (of an Irish family) in Italy," where a parallel instance is painfully detailed. PUMP-ROOM AT CHELTENHAM. 229 phate of magnesia and muriate of soda that were expended during an autumn at this fashionable rendezvous. When he had completed his calculus, he gravely " gave notice" to the pump-maid, that he would make a motion, in the next session of Parliament, for a return of all the waters drunk in Cheltenham during the last seven years ! At this announcement, his friend, who was standing at his elbow, shewed strong symptoms of making an earlier return of the last glass he had swallowed, than was intended and effected a speedy retreat into a bower in the vicinity of the Spa, where I lost sight of the " member for all Ireland." An elderly friend of his, of most aristocratic appearance, remained. He seemed to be labouring under the agony of a discharge of gall-stones. I understood that he was a great author, orator, bookseller, senator, and seedsman ; but that he was subject to periodical attacks of the " black bile," ever since he had opened a Transatlantic grave, for the purpose of procuring a skeleton, that might serve a useful purpose in a series of popular lectures in his native land. I was agreeably surprised to see in this place one of the great bul- warks of our glorious constitution and our enviable laws. He had spent a considerable portion of his life in the arduous task of disentangling equity from iniquity and had often found it impossible to make up his mind on some knotty points, till one of the inferior officers of his court (SERJEANT BEGGARY) stept in to solve the problem! The venerable senator had come down to Cheltenham, partly for his health, but prin- cipally to drink a farewell to the constitution and laws of his country, having lived to see all reverence for precedents abolished, and the besom of Reform sweeping away the cobwebs of antiquity from every shelf of his well-stored archives ! The crowd now became so pressing, that all attempts to individualize were fruitless. The rooms, the walks, the shops were filled with myriads of Whigs, Tories, and Radicals aristocrats, democrats, and bureau- crats. One thing was very clear that the WHIGS seemed all to prefer the chalybeate or tonic waters most of them appearing to labour under considerable debility ; and some of them being actually affected with a kind of " shaking palsy." The TORIES, on the contrary, all nocked to the cooling saline aperient springs, most of them being thirsty, excited, irritable, and feverish. Many of them, I was informed, were scarcely convalescent from severe inflammatory attacks some having been affected with brain-fever, and under restraint, for a time, by advice of their moral and medical attend- ants. Among these, I perceived some PRELATES from the sister isle, who were decidedly in a state of ATROPHY, a disorder which I had never before observed in any one with lawn sleeves. 230 JOHN BULL. The RADICALS were not very numerous ; but they seemed generally inclined to slake their thirst at the same spring with their natural ene- mies the TORIES ! The fahle of the wolf and the lamb coming to drink at the same stream, here rushed across my mind ; but I suppose there was no analogy between the two cases, nor any chance of the con- sequences that ensued in the fable. I was astonished to find that almost the whole members of the re- formed parliament came here, after the close of the first session, in 1833. I inquired of Drs. Coley, Boisragon, Baron, and M'Cabe, what were the principal complaints under which the M. P.'s laboured ? They shewed me a long catalogue of most uncouth names, very few of which I could either understand or remember. I gathered from the Chelten- ham medicos, however, that most of the M. p.'s were affected with flatulence, indigestion, and bilious complaints that several had impedi- ments of speech that some few were short-winded, or asthmatic but that many laboured under a disease, not classed in nosology namely, LONG-WINDEDNESS, or a propensity to expectorate an immense quantity every night, of nouns, pronouns, adverbs, and proverbs, which were carefully collected and preserved in presses, by means of a black, oily pickle, as literary relishes for all kinds of appetite, throughout the various classes of society. This was a sickener ; and I immediately retired to my hotel, where, over a cheering pint of sherry, (which I preferred to No. 4,) I noted the foregoing observations, and then took my SIESTA. An evening scene in Cheltenham, where earthy waters were exchanged' for heavenly airs, occasioned some moral reflections ; but these are re- served for a future edition of this tour should it ever arrive at that honour. JOHN BULL. Having sketched a few characteristics of England, perhaps I may be indulged in a few reflections on JOHN BULL himself. The old adage, " Gnosce teipsum," or " Know thyself," is quite superannuated. No person is supposed to know anything of himself and the same holds good in respect to nations. The English can form no correct notion of themselves they must draw all appreciations of national character from foreigners. Prince Puckler Moskau, and Baron D'Haussez, are far better judges of the English than Bulwer, or any one born and bred on British soil possibly can be. Under this conviction, I shall be some- what brief in this characteristic sketch, since few, perhaps, will read it, and still fewer subscribe to its accuracy. JOHN BULL. 231 I would say, then, that the English, as a people, are inferior to the FRENCH in vivacity to the ITALIANS in sensibility to the GREEKS in subtlety to the GERMANS in ideality to the SPANIARDS in gravity to the DUTCH in phlegm to the RUSSIANS in autocracy to the AME- RICANS in democracy to the IRISH in humour to the WELSH in choler and to the SCOTCH in caution. Yet, into the moral and physical character of JOHN BULL, have entered certain portions or proportions of the prominent features of other nations, which, nurtured by free institutions, and modified by an insular situation, have blended and amalgamated into a composition (like that of his language) not readily matched, and not easily described. In MARTIAL COURAGE, no nation need claim superiority; for none will acknowledge inferiority. Miguelites and Pedroites have agreed, for example, in only one sentiment that the Portuguese are the bravest people on earth ! Of all nations, the English have the least necessity to urge their claims to this valued commodity. The very existence of their own independence, is a sufficient title to an average ratio, after Europe, from the Danube to the Baltic, had been leagued, for years, to annihilate it and that under the greatest warrior which the world ever produced a warrior to whose chariot- wheels victory was chained on whose banners were written, " Delenda cst Carthago " but whose enormous power could not intimidate, much less subjugate, these " haughty islanders " this " nation of shopkeepers." That a small cluster of isles, which the Romans thought it hardly worth while to annex to their unwieldy dominion till they were dying of ennui, should now hold in subjection, or rather in willing obedience, territories more extensive than the whole Roman empire itself and diffuse its language, its literature, and its manners, over a hemisphere where Roman eagle never flew, and where the name of Rome had never been pronounced, is a historical fact, which looks like a poetic fiction, and upon which Britons may safely leave even their enemies to ponder and comment. Sensitively jealous of imagined rights, while patiently submissive under substantial wrongs enthusiastic in defence of liberty at home, while shedding his blood, for many years, in defence of tyranny abroad JOHN BULL has recently awoke from his romantic dream of universal benevolence, and become affected (some say, afflicted) with a violent fit of selfishness and economy. After expending a hundred millions of sovereigns, to save half a dozen of crowns, (some of which were base metal,) he is grown, all at once, so parsimonious, that he is discharging three-fourths of his old and faithful servants, while the remainder are put on board wages scarcely sufficient to procure bread and cheese for them and their families ! 232 JOHN BULL. In JOHN BULL'S tastes and amusements, too, there has been a won- derful revolution. Formerly, he kept a very large menagerie of bears, vultures, black eagles, muscovy ducks, foxes, jackalls, camels, crocodiles, and various other exotic animals, on which he expended immense sums of money. But, latterly, his menagerie has presented no other foreign pets than a Flanders' mare, a French baboon, and a pretty little Brazi- lian parroquet. To the bear and the eagle, John Bull has taken a decided aversion, on account of some preternaturally savage dispositions which these crea- tures have recently evinced towards some of the more spirited and interesting inhabitants of the old menagerie. As several of the other wild and domesticated animals shewed an inclination to imitate the bear, some from instinct, others from fear, John Bull bundled the whole of them overboard, (with the exceptions above-mentioned,) and left them to return to their native haunts, and pursue their instinctive propensities. But it is not merely in zoological matters that John Bull's taste has become revolutionized. Formerly, he kept in pay a great number of gladiators and prize-fighters for the benefit and amusement of his foreign friends the English being little inclined to sights of this kind, though very fond of reading bulletins of the exploits performed by these mercenaries, in other countries. Of late years, John Bull lias tied up his purse turned almost a Jew in money-matters and, from being at the head of the FANCY, in all outlandish boxing-matches, has become a veritable QUAKER, in everything pugnacious ! ! John Bull, too, and most of the younger branches of his family, have lately begun to doubt the truth of that philosophical dogma which assures us that the natural state of mankind is warfare. Some of the juniors in John Bull's household have even gone the length of ques- tioning the hitherto undisputed maxim transmitted from father to son, time immemorial, that the channel, deep though narrow, which sepa- rates Calais from Dover, was placed there by nature, as an unequivocal proof and indication that France and England could never be united, either geographically, politically, commercially, or amicably but that, on the contrary, Frenchmen and English are, by nature, and conse- quently by necessity, as decided enemies to each other, as cats are to rats : In fine, that Gauls and Britons flew at one another, and must always fly, from the same irresistible instinct that impels two bantam cocks to engage, on the instant of meeting ! These sentiments are entertained by a considerable number of the elder branches, male and female, of John Bull's extensive establish- ment. They were taught by their forefathers, and they firmly believed JOHN BULL. 233 in the creed, that the Calmuck and the Ostrogoth the Cossack of the Don, and the Croat of the Danube the pagan and the Pope the Israelite and the Islamite the Caffree and the Columbian the savage of Labrador and the Tartar of the Celestial Empire \vere all natural- born friends and allies of old England while France and its inhabitants were their deadly and implacable enemies ! It is said, that " the nearer the church, the farther from God ;" and so it has been with us : the nearer the French, the farther from friendship ! It is, however, to be acknowledged, that JOHNNY CRAPAUD was not far behind his neighbour, JOHN BULL, in these anti-social creeds, if we are not allowed to call them prejudices. He was taught to believe that the pride and the pelf of the aristocracy and shopocracy were incom- patible with the dignity of the " GRAND NATION " and that the lustre of the imperial sceptre, or the majesty of the people, was insulted, on the south side of the Channel, so long as the trident bore sway in the north. It is not at all improbable that these hostile feelings of mutual rivalry and jealousy contributed to aggrandize the power of both nations. But a time has arrived when such feelings must cease or, at least, be smothered. Nothing forms so strong a bond of union, in this world, as FEAR. Master and slave, brigand and prisoner, Mahommedan and Christian, will unite together in self-defence against the bear and the tiger, if menaced by such animals. It is to be hoped that less potent, but more noble feelings than those of FEAR, are beginning to draw closer the ties of friendship and reciprocal benefit, between two great and neighbouring countries. It may yet turn out that the stormy strait that divides France from England, shall form a link or bond of union, which no power, from the north or the south, from the east or the west, may be able to break. Let the RAIL-WAY of FRIENDSHIP be once firmly established between London and Paris and woe to the bruuo's paw or black eagle's pennon, that shall venture to cross the path of the Anglo-Gallic engine ! The BEAR would be very likely to go back to the White Sea on three feet and it would be miraculous indeed if the spread-eagle had not one of his crowned heads carried off in the col- lision ! A surprising change has taken place even within the present century, in John Bull's sentiments and dispositions towards his friends at home, and his " relations" abroad. Within these fifty or sixty years, John's family has tripled or quadrupled in number, while his landed estates, though perhaps better cultivated, have not increased in their dimensions. The consequence has been, that immense numbers of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandcliildren, having abandoned the spade 234 JOHN BULL. and the plough, the sickle and the scythe, the crook and the flail have betaken themselves to the hammer and the file, the shuttle and the lathe, the bellows and the drill together with a thousand other implements and handicrafts, but little cultivated by their ancestors. The effects have been " prodigious !" Whenever men or women either have been congregated into large masses in confined spaces, mischief has been engendered. In the first place, MONEY is rapidly made in these laboratories and though poets generally deal in fiction, they have spoken truth, for once, when they tell us that riches is the root of evil the irritamenta malorum. The money thus quickly made by certain numerous branches of John Bull's family, introduced a taste for finery and luxury, with all their consequences and these tastes were ultimately communicated to their country cousins. The cities infected the towns the towns infected the villages and the villages infected the farm-houses, with the ambition of living beyond their means, however ample those means might be ! This ruinous propensity was fostered and increased by a monopoly which John Bull's family obtained, at the expense of four or five hun- dred millions sterling, for supplying half the world with cotton and cutlery for the space of ten or fifteen years, during which, John Bull was to have a turnpike-gate on the high seas, for the purpose of pre- venting smuggling, and levying a toll on the manufactures of other countries. All things have an end and so had the contract or mono- poly. When John Bull's charter was taken away, by the conflagration of Moscow, the capture of Paris, and the battle of Waterloo, the whole family of BULLS awoke one morning, and found themselves BEARS, with a deficit of seven or eight hundred millions sterling and what was worse with " Hamlet's occupation gone ! ! " Like bears, with sore heads and empty stomachs, they have, ever since that period, continued to growl ! But this is both a digression and an anticipation. There was a worse evil or, at all events, a more efficient agent, than MONEY, engendered by these congregations of mankind in the prosecu- tion of arts and manufactures. This was KNOWLEDGE. We are told, by the highest authority, that " men run to and fro, and knowledge is increased." In my humble opinion, that precious commodity is more speedily manufactured at home and by concentration rather than dispersion by centripetal, rather than by centrifugal force. But the knowledge to which I allude, is not the common knowledge " de omni- bus rebus;" but the knowledge of COMBINATION. The old classical illustration of the bundle of rods was unknown to, or ill understood by, the myriads of unwashed artizans. They had more familiar examples constantly before their eyes. They saw, for instance, that a rope-yarn JOHN BULL. 235 might be snapped in twain, by the arm of an individual. But they also observed that a certain number of yarns, when twisted together, assumed the new title of CABLE, strong enough to hold fast a LINE-OF-BATTJ.E- SHIP in a gale of wind at Spithead. Ten thousand other illustrations of the wonderful effects of COMBINATION (intellectual combination) were perpetually presenting themselves to the civic and manufacturing masses of society; while their agricultural relations were literally held together by " a rope of sand." Power has two sources moral and physical the force of opinion, and that of animal muscle. Now, COMBINATION engendered and multiplied the force of opinion, even more wonderfully than it did the physical or mere animal force. The press collected from ten thousand tributary streams a torrent of intellectual power, infinitely more operative and irresistible than any physical agency that could be set in motion or directed by human hands inasmuch as it created, organized, and wielded, the brute or physical energy itself! This great political problem is not yet so well understood on the banks of the Dwina and the Danube, as of the Thames and the Seine ; and it is very differently viewed by different nations or rather by their rulers. The solution of the problem is in the womb of fate and not one of the existing generation will live to see that solution complete ! But in John Bull's very numerous family there are sources of dis- union as well as of combination. The elder branches having adhered to the cultivation of the soil, had favours and franchises conferred on them, which were denied to the junior branches who took to the hammer and the shuttle. The agriculturists got a patent for supplying bread to the artizans, who, by this means, were prohibited from importing French rolls from Normandy, and soft tommy from the Baltic, although they could supply themselves with the staff of life for little more than half the money they paid to patentees at home. This partiality has long caused discontent among the artizans, who, nevertheless, furnish their agricultural brethren with every kind of implement and manufacture, at less than half the price they formerly cost. A revocation of the patent has been attempted by an appeal to law : but unfortunately three-fourths of the jury were BAKERS, and the verdict, of course, was in favour of dear bread. Although it must be confessed that, on the score of intelligence, the junior, or artizan and mercantile branches of John Bull's family are superior to the elder or agricultural branches, yet the arguments of the former, in favour of cheap bread, are not quite convincing to the mind of an indifferent spectator. They tell us that, if we take corn from foreign countries, foreign countries will take cotton and cutlery from us. This is an assumption without proof. Let it be tested thus : 236 JOHN BULL. A merchant in London writes to a merchant in Riga, making the fol- lowing proposition : " Send me a ship-load of wheat, at the price cur- rent of wheat in Riga, and I will send you an equivalent, in any English product, at the price current in London." If the Riga merchant answers, " Yes," then the barter is perfectly reciprocal ; but if he answers, " No" and insists upon cash, to be kid out on the manufactures of other countries, the corn-laws are a just retaliation on the anti-reciprocal spirit of the Riga merchant. Here is a simple, if not a safe text*. It may be urged, and with reason, that free trade would benefit the manufacturer at the expense of the landholder : the retort is, that the corn-laws injure the former, for the benefit of the latter. It is main- tained that free trade would increase the manufacturing population and decrease the agricultural. Well, it seems reasonable that the people of every country, and every locality, should be at liberty to pursue those avocations that are most advantageous to themselves. It would be unjust, as well as absurd, to prevent the Shetlander from importing corn from Aberdeen, because he finds it more profitable to plough the sea in quest of herrings, than the soil in search of oats. Besides, it is undoubted that the agricultural population is so redundant that the poor's-rates is one of the greatest sources of distress to the farmer. But there seems little danger of the soil of England lying waste in conse- quence of free trade, where the population, already redundant, is annu- ally increasing. If wheat can be got cheaper from abroad, every inch of ground at home will be cultivated with some vegetable substance adapted to the physical or moral w r auts of the inhabitants. It is pos- sible that free trade in corn might diminish the landlord's rent, and cause him to keep a smaller kennel of hounds, or a less numerous stud of horses. It might also, perchance, render some of the gentlemen far- mers less capable than they now r are of employing so many music, danc- ing, and language-masters for their daughters ; or of hiring a box annu- ally at the Italian Opera, for the moral and physical improvement of their families. I acknowledge that the Sapphos and Cecilias of our corn-fields, will suffer great privations in being denied the pleasure of perusing Tasso and Alfieri, in the original and of drawing down har- mony from Heaven, upon hay-ricks and sheepfolds, through the lute and the harp, the guitar and the harpsichord. But let them recollect that every class of society must bear a portion of the evils attendant on re- * It is vain to say that the gold given for corn is procured in exchange for our own manufactures, from oilier countries. This fact only proves that the trade in gold and cutlery is reciprocal between Mexico and England; but not between England and Poland, in cotton and corn. JOHN BULL. 237 dundant population and that their return to Arcadian simplicity, for which they sigh in every sonato, cannot, surely, be the worst vicissitude to which humanity is liable in this vale of tears *. Is it certain that free trade in corn would enable the English manu- facturer to undersell all his continental competitors in foreign markets, and thus aggrandize England still higher in the scale of commercial nations ? I make no pretension to a knowledge of political arithmetic but common observation, with, I hope, common sense, leads me to doubt the extent of public good which is expected from free trade in corn. Let us suppose that it would reduce the price of bread one half, which is going far enough. Take, then, an operator, with his wife and four children, constituting a family of six souls. Their bread, at pre- sent, costs them one shilling and sixpence per diem which is a very high estimate. The free trade in corn reduces it, at once, to ninepence. The artizan is therefore ninepence a day richer than before. Will he go to his master and say, I will now work for ninepence per day less than I did, because my bread is cheaper and because I wish you to un- dersell the manufacturers of France and Germany ? Will he offer half the savings ? I suspect not and imagine that he will rather lay out the ninepence on better cheer at home, or an additional pot of porter, at dinner and supper. I confess I should be inclined to this myself. But, say the advocates of free trade in corn, " The price of bread regulates the price of all other articles of food." I doubt this. But if it does, so much the worse. If the beef, the mutton, the pork, the poultry, the hay, the corn, &c., all fall one half, with the loaf, then indeed the agri- cultural population will be effectually ruined and must soon go to the poorhouse ! My own impression is, that the importation of grain, duty free, would make but a small difference in the price of the various commodities which we use, whether food, raiment, or luxuries and consequently that the sanguine expectations of the community will be greatly disap- pointed, when the event takes place. At the same time, it seems very natural and just that commercial reciprocities in the natural and arti- ficial productions of different countries, should obtain to the fullest ex- tent. The jealousies of nations, like those of individuals, will never, I fear, permit such a liberal adjustment of international exchanges. * As bad habits, however quickly acquired, are slow and difficult of removal, the safest plan perhaps would be, a very small triennial reduction of that maximum price of wheat which permits importation. By this slow and almost imperceptible process, a free trade in corn would be ullimately effected, without the risk of evils attendant on sudden transitions. 238 JOHN BULL. Of John Bull's WEALTH it would be a cruel mockery to speak, when Whig and Tory aristocrat and democrat merchant and tradesman manufacturer and farmer every denomination of society, in short, from Windsor to Wapping from Beachy-Head to Cape Rath, agree in this one fact, that the whole nation is on the eve of bankruptcy and half the population in the workhouse ! To offer insult to indigence, is a refinement of cruelty to which I am not inclined ; and therefore I shall waive the subject of WEALTH, and pass lightly and charitably over the POVERTT of my country. If a joint stock-company were found to be in debt, to the tune of seven or eight hundred millions sterling unable to pay the capital and hardly capable of scraping up a low annual interest for their creditors they would be considered little less than insolvent. Such is the state of the JOHN BULL FIRM, according to the representations of a numerous class of society. It is exceedingly difficult for a foreigner to discover this poverty in England. He surveys the various gradations of the com- munity, from the palace to the workhouse, and he sees splendid houses, beautiful furniture, magnificent carriages, well-dressed people, ruddy complexions, excellent roads, abundant provisions (even in our work- houses and jails) and oceans of money ready to flow into any channel that promises four or five per cent, interest on capital ! Where, then, is the poverty of the country ? It is in the unequal distribution of property. There is an immense class of PAUPERS in England, fed by their brethren, and therefore not distinguishable by the foreigners, from those who feed them. As the national debt is a sum of money borrowed from a feio, for the real or supposed good of ALL so the interest of that debt is levied on ALL, without distinction on the creditor as well as on the debtor. A national bankruptcy would neither augment nor diminish the sum total of wealth in the country. It might impoverish the FEW, without enrich- ing the MANY. But we cannot, and need not dwell on a fraudulent bankruptcy in such a commercial country as this. If John Bull chooses to take the " benefit of the act" he must abide by all its provisions, and deliver up his goods and chattels to his creditors. In that case, I suspect that he would pay twenty shillings in the pound, and have a large surplus after all. Honesty is the best policy, in public as well as in private life. Government would not gain that freedom of action, which is anticipated from a fraudulent extinction of taxation for paying the public creditor. When the sponge that wipes away the national debt, is wrung dry, it may not very readily saturate itself with a fresh glut of moisture. He who stops payment from disinclination rather than poverty, may find some difficulty afterwards in putting hie hand PAUPERISM. 239 into his neighbour's pocket, when seized with a fit of extravagance or knavery ! A national debt, and the burden of discharging its interest, are not unqualified evils. They will prove a curb on national pugnacity and produce a backwardness in picking quarrels with our neighbours not so much, perhaps, from disinclination to mix in the WAR-DANCE, as from a well-grounded dread of paying the piper afterwards ! PAUPERISM. If the national debt or at least the payment of the interest be a proof of the great wealth of England, the extent of her pauperism (paradoxical as it may appear) is a still more unequivocal testimony to the immensity of her resources. The wealth of the upper and middling classes is, in a great measure, the grand remote cause of the pauperism of the lowest class. If the former classes could not pay the poor-rates, pauperism would soon be at an end. If the poor-laws continue in their present form, pauperism will ultimately eat down property, till a level be produced, which will cure the evil ! Ex nihilo nihil fit. If wealth, enormously accumulated in the hands of certain classes of society, be one of the remote causes of pauperism in others, the poor-laws are the proximate cause, both of redundant population, and its consequence, poverty. If England be destined to undergo the fate of other great empires of Greece and Rome, for example it will be mainly through the instrumentality of a code of laws, originating in the most benevolent motives, but unexpectedly operating to the destruction of the nation ! If all the cruel tyrants, cold-hearted misanthropes, and blood-thirsty monsters that ever lived on the face of this earth, had formed a conclave, with SATAN for their chairman, they would not have been able to frame an ordonnance half so ruinous to human happiness and human pros- perity as the POOR-LAWS of ENGLAND! These laws are the dry-rot of society. The more magnificent the framework of a ship, affected with this disease, the more extensive is the destructive process of the worm, and the more terrible the crash, when the timbers give way. It is so with the poor-laws. The more efforts we make to improve our circumstances, the more numerous are the blood-suckers that fasten on us for support, and drain us of our earnings. The POOR-LAWS have demoralized the indigent, and are demoralizing the affluent. If they hold out a premium for idleness and vice in one class, they lay the foundation for callous indifference, and almost misanthropy, in the 240 PAUPERISM. other. They are a source of terror to those who have anything to lose, and of discontent to those who have anything to gain. There is scarcely a channel to the human heart, through which the tide of demoralization is not urged by the poor-laws. In the first place, they tend to sever the strongest of Nature's ties those between parent and progeny between brother and sister ! " Those whose minds have been moulded by the operation of the poor-laws, appear not to feel the slightest scruple in asking to be paid for the performance of those domestic duties, which the most brutal savages are, in general, willing to render gratuitously to their own kindred ! ' Why should I tend my sick and aged parents, when the parish is bound to do it?" Reports on the Poor Laws, vol. i. p. 85. Various illustrations are given by the Commissioners, of this kind of modern philosophy ! Secondly, they weaken the grand stimulus to industry, (the fear of want,) by holding out a certain prospect of support from others, when our own resources fail, whether from illness, accident, or idleness ! " Is any, and what attention paid to the character of the applicant, or the causes of his distress?" Answer. " None whatever. The greatest thief in the parish has the magistrate's allowance ; the honest but unfortunate get no more. The idle and dissolute are paid equally with the industrious and prudent." Poor Law Report, p. 9. Thirdly, the poor-laws directly encourage early and imprudent mar- riages the prolific source of redundant population, itself a cause as well as effect of pauperism. If two men apply for parish relief, the one married, and the other single, the former has the preference, as to work, and the greater allow- ance of parochial assistance. For every child that he can produce, he has an additional weekly allowance from the parish. The thickest- skulled clown in the country can see the nature of this bounty on the reproduction of the human species. He runs and gets married. Every year, or less, produces an increase of his parish allowance and the MAN-FACTOR? which impoverishes the nation, enriches the pauper ! " Whether that want is produced by imprudent marriages, or idle- ness, or thoughtless extravagance or even by squandering resources with the deliberate intention of coming upon the parish, appears to be quite indifferent. Under this system, the lot of every man is the same. No one can raise himself by good conduct above the ordinary level : no one can sink himself below it by the opposite course." Report, p. 77. What a glorious law is this for the improvement of our species in the nineteenth century ! Fourthly, the poor-laws have an additional tendency to demoralization, PAUPERISM. 241 by congregating various characters, in work-houses and on roads (not forgetting ale-houses) where labour is unproductive, where mischief is hatched, and good principles (if any exist) are corrupted. Every page of the Poor-law Reports exhibits illustrations of this melancholy fact ! A thousand other ways, in which the administration of the poor-laws tends to demoralize the people, and increase pauperism, might be pointed out : but the task is unnecessary. Through the four channels above- named, the main streams of mischief flow, swelled as they are by innu- merable contributory currents. For every intractable, or even incurable disease, a hundred infallible remedies are announced to the public every year. So, for PAUPERISM, a great many specifics have been recommended to the government, and to the parochial authorities. Many of these might probably have been serviceable, had they been fairly tried. But what is everybody's busi- ness, is nobody's ! The great mass of society grumble, and pay ; but decline taking any part in remedial measures, from various motives. The task itself is an invidious one ; and the loss of time is balanced against the problematical benefit. EMIGRATION has been generally considered as the most natural remedy for the evil of redundant population, and its consequence, PAUPERISM. It has been compared, and not inaptly, to the safety-valve of a steam-engine. But this safety-valve does not affect the generation of steam; it only lets off the redundancy, when the pressure becomes excessive, and endangers the boiler. It is exactly so with emigration. It carries off a portion of the redundant population, and, in that way, diminishes, for the moment, the painful sense of distention in society. It does not check the cause of the redundancy. On the contrary; it rather augments it. The migration of five hundred or a thousand people from any given locality, only enables the remainder to breathe a little freer, and fill up the vacancies with an increased impetus. In these voluntary migrations, too, it is by no means the worst part of the population that seeks a new theatre for the operation of industry. But although voluntary migration offers no preventive check to re- dundant population ; while forced emigration (except for crimes) is out of the question ; it is possible that a third mode alternative emi- gration might be applicable as a preventive remedy to the evils of pauperism. Suppose an able-bodied man applies to the parish for relief because he cannot get employment ? The parish officer answers, " We cannot find you work, and we will not find you the means of living without work. But we will assist you to go to a country where work- men are wanted." This is alternative emigration. You have the 242 PAUPERISM. choice of staying at home and shifting for yourself or of going abroad, free of expense, where avocation is certain. The fear that the parish, or even the government, would he unable to accommodate the multitude who might accept the offer of alternative emigration , is quite chimerical. Not one in fifty would close with the proposal for a trip to Canada. But the refusal would leave the appli- cant without the power of saying, " I am forced to starve in my own country." The alternative in question would induce forty-nine in fifty to exert themselves in gaining a livelihood at home, rather than cross the Atlantic to the scene of hard labour. This, then, would be a pre- ventive check to redundant population and pauperism. Another, and a still more favourite check to redundant population and pauperism, in the opinion of political economists, is the " DIFFU- SION of KNOWLEDGE." This is a problem of no easy solution, as I have remarked in another place*. It is very probable, however, that a greater diffusion of knowledge among the lower classes of society, may tend to check those causes on which redundant population depends. We find that, as the scale of civilization ascends, the tendency to early marriage decreases. Thus, the members of the learned professions are the latest to enter within the pale of matrimony. Let us look to the opposite extreme of the scale, in the bogs of Ireland. There, a pig and a piece of potato-field or at most, " an acre of ground and a cow's grass," form a sufficient SET-OUT for poor Paddy, who rears, on this simple foundation, some twelve or fifteen HUMAN BEINGS, as poor as himself half of them manufactured for EXPORTATION to England and Scotland ! From this low point, in exact proportion as mankind rise on the scale of mental endowment, OR of luxurious refinement, the obstacles to matrimony multiply celibacy increases the average period of con- tracting marriage is thrown back and redundancy of population is checked. The peasantry of Scotland are better educated than those of Ireland. They require a greater number of comforts for the marriage state ; and they are more cautious, as well as slow, in contracting matrimony. The population, therefore, advances with less rapidity in Scotland than in Ireland. In England, the difficulties of providing for families check matrimo- nial engagements among the better classes of society. But the poor- * See p. 33, 34. PAUPERISM. 243 laws here offer a bounty on matrimony, head-money to children, en- couragement to idleness and, consequently, an impetus to POPULATION ! Whether the " DIFFUSION of KNOWLEDGE," then, may check pauper- ism in this country, ivithout producing other evils, is a problem un- solved. The diffusion will take place, nolens volens, and the conse- quences must be endured, be they good or evil. The third check is labour productive labour. POVERTY ought not to be punished as a crime it has a sufficiency of attendant evils without that ! but it cannot be too early introduced to the acquaintance of INDUSTRY, or even toil, the surest antidote to indigence. LABOUR has been so rarely productive, and consequently successful, in the work- house, that it is almost universally abandoned not because it is inefficient in itself, but because it is ignorantly or wilfully mismanaged. What can be done once, may be done a thousand times. What can be effected by pauper labour in one county, may be effected in every one. It is unnecessary to multiply examples. I shall only adduce one or two. In the parish of East Bourne, Sussex, a few years ago, the vestry converted the cavalry-barrack into a WORK-HOUSE, for the manufacture of coarse woollens and linens ; when the families of poor people were large, some of the children were taken into the work-house, by day, and their earnings supported them. By this plan the rates were greatly reduced. But the master of the work-house died, and as nobody was found to supply his place, the scheme failed, and the rates ran up to their old scale, or even higher. Mrs. Gilbert Davies has made some experiments, in the same locality, which are highly deserving of notice. She commenced with small allot- ments of land, in 1830, to thirty-five poor people, since increased to one hundred and seventeen. " The tenants pay their rent with punctuality, and many labourers have made voluntary offers of surrendering parish allowance, if allotments were made to them." Poor-law Report. But the most remarkable illustration is the following. Mrs. D. Gil- bert caused a portion of the shingle on the sea-shore to be covered with clay dug from an adjoining marsh, and then some good soil to be spread on the surface. This land (if it can be called so) was hired by labour- ers at 3d. per rod, i. e. 40s. an acre, (which exceeds the rent of the best arable land in the parish ;) and an excellent crop of potatoes was raised in the autumn from that which was a shingly beach in the spring ! ! In the parish of STANFORD RIVERS, Essex, the expenditure on the poor was, in the year 1821, 1191/. In 1824, a gentleman, of the name of Andrews, made a bold effort to put down pauperism. The weekly pay R 2 244 PAUVERISM. was, at once, struck off; and in two years (1826) the pauper allowance was reduced to 560/. " The labourers, by degrees, learnt to depend on their own resources. The rates gradually diminished, and in 1828, the rates were reduced to 196/. The vestry determined that all capable of work should be employed, and that no relief should be given but in return for labour." Report, p. 38. The above instances speak for themselves. What has been done in Stanford Rivers may be done everywhere. In every parish^of England there is a sufficient number of unemployed and yet of philanthropic in- dividuals, who might form an association for the employment of the poor. This employment, if not productive, will be worse than useless. Men compelled to work on the roads have destroyed more of their implements than their labour was worth ; besides corrupting each other's principles. But if coarse and common manufactories were established in work- houses, and a portion of the earnings given to the paupers and if the inhabitants of the parish purchased these manufactures, the rates would soon be reduced, and pauperism checked. The hand-mills invented by Mr. Cochrane might be very advantageously employed in every work- house and the parish thereby supplied with wholesome flour. Every man, woman, and child might thus be made to earn their living. But no remedy will be of permanent avail, while the grand cause the poor-laws themselves remain unmodified. While a bounty is offered for improvident marriage and redundant population, pauperism must flourish, till the opulent are ground down into indigence or till the indigent become so numerous as, at once, to overwhelm, by brute force, all property, and uproot the whole foundations of society. But the sense and the self-preservative fears of society will not allow these dreadful alternatives to obtain. The primary and fundamental check will be, the enactment of a law that no man (after the enactment) shall be entitled to additional relief, on account of marriage and children. Secondly, that relief shall only be given in exchange for labour, where the applicant is able to work. Thirdly, that ALTERNATIVE EMIGRA- TION be offered to the able-bodied. Fourthly, that the aged and infirm be employed in such occupations as they can pursue, while encourage- ment is given to them by the parish, by purchasing the humble pro- ducts of their labours. These and other remedial checks to pauperism, will not, perhaps, be worked effectually, till the disease acquires still greater intensity, and threatens more imminent danger than it now presents. But the time is approaching when the most opulent and apathetic will deem it prudent to put their hands to the plough, and help to stem an evil which menaces their property and consequently their comforts. The sense of danger CONCLUSION. 245 will ultimately spread down even to the very confines of drudgery and PAUPERISM itself may one day begin to perceive that it is endangering the existence of its only property the PARISH FUNDS ! It is possible, if not probable, that the PAUPER may yet be made to comprehend that there is a depth of misery even below his present condition, and into which he may be plunged namely, starvation or death, in the event of an actual conflict for the preservation of property ! But he will not be easily made to perceive this alternative while opulence and luxury are rolling around him, without taking any effectual steps to check the growing evil. Still, I am confident that, desperate as is the disease, and difficult as is the remedy, there is an elasticity and soundness in JOHN BULL'S con- stitution that will resist the former, and ultimately effect the latter. The stings of insects are not poignant enough to rouse the slumbering lion from repose ; but when he feels the barbed dart, he springs from his lair, and shakes the puny assailants from his shaggy sides. CONCLUSION. But the smoke and the spires of Modern Babylon rise on my view, and, like the shock of the torpedo, benumb the senses and paralyze the imagination ! As the unfortunate vessel was attracted to her destruc- tion by the magnetic island, so am I impelled by my fate towards that Syrtis of ambition, that whirlpool of passion, that abyss of cares, where the chief consolation is, that individual feeling is merged and concealed in the mass of general misery ! Here, then, the reader and the writer part perhaps for ever. They have travelled together through many a varied scene they have differed, no doubt, on many an interesting topic. But, as the tour has been short, and the journey of life itself is not long, let them separate in peace if not in friendship. The author has already had his reward, in the pleasure of the excursion, and the amusement of describing it. The book itself will show that he had no pecuniary advantage in view ; and if public appro bation should happen to be thrown into the scale, he will be doubly, n ay trebly rewarded. Vale ! LONDON : Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Duke Street, Lambelli. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 000096347 Un