THE LIBRARIES 
 
CIRCUIT JOURNEYS 
 
CIRCUIT JOURNEYS 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 LORD COCKBURN 
 
 Bonctly 
 
 EDINBURGH: DAVID DOUGLAS 
 
 1 889 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
I C--I o%^4- 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 West (Emutt— ^xttumn 1837. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Airtlirie— Sir Thomas Lauder, 
 
 3 Pronouncing sentences, 
 
 6 
 
 Pleas of guilty, . 
 
 . 5 By MoncreiflF, . 
 
 . 7 
 
 ©tegoto OTiratit— Winter 1838. 
 
 Case of Cotton - spinners — of 
 Thomas Riddle, 
 
 Alison, Archibald, his ora- 
 tions, 
 
 £iotih (Eircmt— S^ing 1838. 
 
 Scotch Spring scenery — Kinross 
 
 — Kindrogan, 
 From Dunkeld to Aviemore, 
 Bridge of Carr — Scott's Life — 
 
 Brougham's Article in Edin- 
 
 bicrgh Review, 
 Case of M'Lean for murder, 
 
 Elgin, 15 
 
 Aberdeenshire, . . . .16 
 Circuit processions— Jails, state 
 
 of, 17 
 
 Aberdeen— Montrose — Arbroath, 18 
 The Option, .... 19 
 Perth Court-house, . . .21 
 
 Wizst Cimtit— J^utumn 1838. 
 
 Old Kilpatrick — Luss, 
 Inscription on tomb, . 
 Tarbet — and Scotch Inns, , 
 Inveraray, .... 
 From Inveraray to Strachur, 
 Loch Fyne scenerj', . 
 
 . 23 
 
 Glencroe — Loch Lomond, . 
 
 . '31 
 
 . 24 
 
 Serjeant Talfourd, . 
 
 . 32 
 
 . 25 
 
 Meadowbank, Lord, . 
 
 . 33 
 
 . 26 
 
 Professor Lushington, 
 
 . 33 
 
 . 27 
 
 Pronouncing sentences. 
 
 , 34 
 
 27-30 
 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Jl0rth; Ctrrutt — (Spring 1839. 
 
 Blairadam and Snaigow, . 
 Tayside in Spring, 
 Fascally and Burn, . 
 Blair to Aviemore — Aviemore, 
 Inverness, .... 
 Graham Speirs— Nairn —Forres 
 Elgin— Gordon Castle, 
 
 36 
 37 
 38 
 39 
 41 
 42 
 43 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Aberdeenshire— Provost Milne, 44 
 Marischal College, . . .45 
 Perth— Rutherfurd, Lord Advo- 
 cate — Depute-Advocate, . 46 
 Lord Moncreiff— John A. Mur- 
 ray, Knight, . , . . 47 
 
 (South Cirmit— ^.utumn 1839. 
 
 Gala Water, .... 
 
 48 
 
 Penpont-Thornhill Inn— New 
 
 
 Borthwickbrae, .... 
 
 51 
 
 Abbey, 
 
 60 
 
 Branxholm — Alemoor Loch- 
 
 
 Solway, 
 
 61 
 
 Jedburgh, .... 
 
 52 
 
 Southwick — Gelston — Tongue- 
 
 
 Craig, Lord— Selkirk, 
 
 54 
 
 land— Dundreunan Abbey, 
 
 62 
 
 St. Mary's Loch, 
 
 55 
 
 Cally, 
 
 63 
 
 Loch o' the Lowes— Beattock, . 
 
 56 
 
 Cumpston to Thornhill— Ken- 
 
 
 Moffat — Dumfries — Dumfries 
 
 
 mure, 
 
 65 
 
 Lunatic Asylum, . 
 
 hi 
 
 Minnyhive, .... 
 
 66 
 
 Dumfries Martyrs' tomb— Drum- 
 
 
 Goodman's i^^■s«or2/— Grattan's 
 
 
 lanrig, ..... 
 
 58 
 
 Life—Fair Maid of Perth, . 
 
 67 
 
 Nith, 
 
 59 
 
 
 
 TOe0t (Eirmtt- 
 
 -(S^jring 1840. 
 
 
 Airthrie— The Option, 
 
 69 
 
 Circuit dinners, .... 
 
 72 
 
 Case of Tenipleton for murder, . 
 
 71 
 
 Hermand, Lord— Romilly's Me- 
 
 
 Case of a Chimney Sweep, . 
 
 72 
 
 moirs, 
 
 73 
 
 OTe0t (Etmiit- 
 
 -J^ntumn 1840. 
 
 
 Strathearn, .... 
 
 75 
 
 —Epitaph in churchyard of— 
 
 
 Dalmally, .... 
 
 76 
 
 Oban to Minard, 
 
 84 
 
 Loch Awe— River Awe, 
 
 77 
 
 Melfort Loch— Kilmartiu church- 
 
 
 Muckairn— Oban, 
 
 78 
 
 yard tombs— Mossman, John, 
 
 85 
 
 lona, 
 
 79 
 
 Minard— La chlan Castle, . 
 
 86 
 
 Staffa, 
 
 81 
 
 LochEck, 
 
 88 
 
 Mull, Sound of, . 
 
 82 
 
 Clyde, 
 
 89 
 
 English Residenters, . 
 
 83 
 
 The Pathfinder, .... 
 
 90 
 
 English Students— Dunstafinage 
 
 
 
 
 ^Ia0jj0itj Cirmit- 
 
 -'miwizx 1841. 
 
 
 Medwyn, Lord, .... 
 
 911 
 
 Bigamy inadequately pun- 
 
 
 Convictions in capital cases— 
 
 1 
 
 ished, 
 
 92 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 <South Cirmit— cSprtng 1841. 
 
 Melrose Abbey, . 
 
 Teviot, 
 
 Langholm, . 
 
 Longtown — Ecclefechan, 
 
 Lochmaben, 
 
 Dumfries, . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 93 
 95 
 96 
 97 
 
 Torthorwald — James Craufurd, 99 
 Dalveen— Thornhill, . . .100 
 Durisdeer— Thornhill to Edin- 
 burgh, 101 
 
 Brougham's Political Pliilusujjhy 
 and Humphrey's Clock, . .102 
 
 ^ortk Cirnut— ^.tttumu 1841. 
 
 Tyndrum, . . .104 
 
 Glencoe — Ballachulisb, . 105 
 
 Cleaner faces — Anderson's 
 Guide to Highlands — Angus 
 Cameron, .... 107 
 Linnhe Loch — Loch Ness — 
 
 Glengarry, late, . . . 109 
 Invermoriston— Glenmoriston, . Ill 
 Shiel House — Loch Duich, . 113 
 
 Kyle Rhea, . . .114 
 
 Broadford, .... 115 
 
 Mackinnon of Corry, . . . 116 
 Loch Slapin — Spar Cave — 
 Scavaig — Coruisk — Cuillin 
 Hills, .... 118-127 
 
 Kyle Akin-Skye, . . .128 
 Strome Ferry — Jean Town, . 129 
 Maree, .... 130-135 
 Garve, . . . .131 
 
 Southern Ross — Dingwall, . 136 
 
 Epitaph in Di^g^Yall churchyard 
 
 — Beauly Priory, . . . 137 
 Crombie, dine with, at Aberdeen 
 
 — Aberdeen — Aberdeen Cross, 140 
 
 Braemar, 141 
 
 Banchory — Ballater — Castleton 
 
 — Aboyne — Kindrogan, . .144 
 
 Craighall, 145 
 
 Perth— Population, . . . 146 
 Combe, and his Notes on America., 147 
 
 j:ortk Circuit— §:pnng 1842. 
 
 Cupar- Angus, .... 
 
 Epitaph — Glamis— Strathmore, 
 
 Aberdeen — Prisoner lifted into 
 Court, 
 
 Case of threatening letter — Aber- 
 deen party — Aberdeen Cross, 
 
 Road to the pier — Aberdeenshire, 
 
 Fochabers, .... 
 
 Sabbath desecration, 
 
 Morayshire, .... 
 
 Elgin— John Shanks' epitaph — 
 James Hoy's, . . . 155, 
 
 Forres, 
 
 149 
 150 
 
 151 
 
 152 
 153 
 
 Inverness— The Highland Road 
 —Bridge of Tilt, . 
 
 Blair, exclusion of people from 
 — Blair to Dunkeld, 
 
 Blair, Pitlochry— Lhanbryde, . 
 
 Dunkeld Grounds — A Perth Sun- 
 day, 
 
 154 i North Inch 
 
 154 
 155 
 
 156 
 
 156 
 
 Perth's exemption from trade, . 
 Perth Bridge — Perth Cases— 
 
 Penitentiary, .... 
 Moncreiff's closing address — 
 
 Barnaby Rudge, 
 
 157 
 
 159 
 160 
 
 161 
 162 
 163 
 
 164 
 
 165 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 TOc0t Ctmtit— c^tttumn 1842. 
 
 Stirlinc 
 
 PAGE PAOE 
 
 . 166 Arran— Brodick — Glenrosie, . 16y 
 
 Its wells— Porch at Cowan's Hos- 
 pital, 167 
 
 Arclrossan — Fairlie — Fall of 
 Southannaii, .... 168 
 
 Goatfell, .... 
 Scotch Hills— Glen Sannox, 
 Lamlash, .... 
 Mr. Neaves— Lord Mackenzie, 
 
 171 
 172 
 174 
 177 
 
 W^st Cmuit— <S^riu9 1843. 
 
 John Hope, a bore, . 
 Kilpatrick — Leven — Stone at 
 Rest and be Thankful — Prim- 
 
 An Inveraray jury, . 
 Inveraray sermons — Epitaph — 
 Inveraray, .... 
 Loch Awe — Kil churn. 
 
 179 
 
 180 
 181 
 
 182 
 183 
 
 Swallows, Loch Lomond — upper 
 
 end, 185 
 
 The Bull Stone pulpit— Guthrie, 187 
 
 Garscube, 188 
 
 Case of Mackay, murderer, . 189 
 Case of a poisoner — Prisoners 
 description of Judges— Lord 
 Meadowbank— Zv/e of Wilkie, 190 
 
 Wizsi Cirattt— <^utumn 1843. 
 
 Rothesay, 192 
 
 Barone -Rothesay Castle — Kin- 
 garth, 194 
 
 Bute, ..... 195 
 
 Kyles— Rothesay bathing, . 196 
 
 East Tarbert-Loch Tarbert, 197, 198 
 Ardpatrick and Kilberry, . . 198 
 Tarbert to Inveraray —Ardrishaig 
 — Barmore-Strachur, .201,202 
 
 Loch Eck, 202 
 
 George Houston — Death of 
 George Joseph Bell, . . 203 
 
 Glasgow cases— Defence of in- 
 sanity—Irish lad, . . . 204 
 
 Reformability of thieves — Mr. 
 Mark Napier, .... 205 
 
 Public coach in Glencoe, . . 206 
 
 €U090to Ciraut— TOittt^r 1844. 
 
 Cases— Long imprisonments, . 207 
 Mary Boyle— Poetical and sketch- 
 ing prisoners, . . . 208 
 
 A marrying justice, . . . 208 
 David Mure — Glasgow Court- 
 house, 209 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Sioxi\i (Eirmit— §;rring 1844. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Duukeld, 211 
 
 Its Cathedral— Bruar Falls, . 212 
 Blair to Kingussie — Pitmain Old 
 
 Inn — Kingussie Hotel, . . 213 
 Cairngorms, .... 214 
 Moray Firth and Bay of Naples, 215 
 GlenTruim, . . . .215 
 Druidical temple at Inverness, . 215 
 Dalcross— Cawdor Castle, . . 216 
 Cawdor church— Kilravock, . 217 
 Fon-es — Pluscarden, . .219 
 Elgin and John Shanks, . 220, 221 
 Epitaph — Theological discus- 
 sion ,221 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Aberdeen cases, . . . 222 
 
 Aberdeen — Its Cross— Statues, . 223 
 Free Churches — Orphan Hospital 
 
 —Poor School, . . .224 
 Market— Balls— Dunnottar, . 225 
 Arbroath— Railways, . . . 226 
 St. Andrews, . . . .227 
 Sir D. Brewster — Abemethy 
 
 Tower— Swallows, . . .234 
 Perth cases — Mr. Arkley and 
 
 Mark Napier, . . . .235 
 Perth bells — Railways — Washer- 
 women, 236 
 
 Weather— Macaulay, . . 237 
 
 §cttth Cirritit — Jlutumn 1844. 
 
 Dumfries, 238 
 
 Its, and other, greens — A bad 
 
 dinner — Terregles, . . . 239 
 Lincluden — Burns's house — Allan- 
 ton— Mrs. Thomson, . . 240 
 Gatehouse to Newton-Stewart — 
 
 Creetown, .... 241 
 Loch Cree — Newton-Stewart, 
 
 by Rowan Tree, to Blairwhan, 242 
 Blairwhan, .... 243 
 
 Shewalton — Ayr business, . 244 
 
 Special jurors — Ayr, formerly 
 
 and now, .... 245 
 Lady Bell, 247 
 
 From Ayr to Cumpston by Dal- 
 
 mellington, .... 248 
 Cumpston — Dundi-ennan Abbey, 
 
 as reformed, .... 249 
 Cally — Martyrs' Monument in 
 
 Glenkens, .... 250 
 Little Ross lighthouse, . . 251 
 Dirk Hatteraick's cave, . . 253 
 Kirkcudbright, . . . .254 
 Senwick and Christkirk church- 
 yards, 255 
 
 Kenmure, Lord — and tower— 
 Burke's Letters, . . . 256 
 
 ^xrrth Cirrutt — <S:prmg 1845. 
 
 Cantray— Burn of Cawdor, , 259 
 Celtic garb— The Happy Valley 
 — Inverness banquet, . . 261 
 
 Knockomie, 
 Findhorn and Relugas, 
 John Shanks' monument, 
 Brotherton, 
 
 . 262 
 . 263 
 . 264 
 . 265 
 
 Den Finella— Perth- Advocate- 
 Depute's ball, . . .266 
 
 Dupplin — Invermay — Kinfauns 
 — Seggieden, .... 267 
 
 Railway Lunacy — " Gregory the 
 Seventh " and Foreman, . 268 
 
 Punning Texts, . . .269 
 
X CON IE NTS. 
 
 
 Wit^i (Kirruit— 
 
 -S^tttiimn 1845. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Stirling— Sir A. Christie, . . 270 
 
 Loch Etive, . . 283-287 
 
 Dunblane— Jedburgh Abbey, . 272 
 
 Fasnacloich to Oban— Oban, 
 
 287 
 
 Melrose, Admission money— 
 
 Oban to Dalmally, 
 
 288 
 
 Strathearn to King's House, . 273 
 
 Kilchurn — Dalmally Church, 
 
 289 
 
 Glencoe, 274 
 
 Sails on Loch Fyne in Sir 
 
 Ballachulish, . . , .275 
 
 Thomas Lauder's cutter, 
 
 290 
 
 Loch Leven, . . .276 
 
 Argyle Jury— Loch Lomond, 
 
 291 
 
 St. Mungo Island, . . .277 
 
 Kilmun— Loch Eck, . 
 
 292 
 
 Ardshiels case — Ballachulish 
 
 Glenfinart, 
 
 293 
 
 Episcopal Chapel— River Leven 278 
 
 Glen Messan, 
 
 294 
 
 Appin — Mr. John Stewart— 
 
 Blind witness, . 
 
 295 
 
 Ballachulish to Fasnacloich, . 280 
 
 Buying a tongue— Glasgow new 
 
 1 
 
 Fasnacloich — Appin, . . . 281 
 
 Courthouse, . 
 
 296 
 
 gcxttk Circuit— Spring 1846. 
 
 Medical Evidence, 298 
 
 
 Ilorth Circuit— 
 
 Loch Katrine, 
 
 
 . 299 
 
 Loch Lubnaig, 
 Comrie House- 
 
 -Killin. . 
 
 . 299 
 . 301 
 
 Loch Tay, .... 
 Taymouth (/astle— Grandtully— 
 Strath Tay, . 
 
 302 
 303 
 
 (S^pt^mber 1846. 
 
 Dunkeld to Arbroath, . . 304 
 Deeside, .... 305-308 
 Castleton to Blair by the Spittal 
 and Kindrogan, . . . 308 
 
 Glen Tilt, 310 
 
 Timiebole, . . .315 
 
 aita^goto Circuit— raint^r 1846. 
 
 Page 317. 
 
 WitQi Circuit— Sirring 1847. 
 
 Pages 318, 319. 
 
 goittlt Circuit— Autumn 184' 
 
 Recollections of old Circuits, 320-331 I Case at Jedburgh, 
 Dalmellington, . . . . 332 | 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 J^orth; Ciratit— <S;jrtn0 1848. 
 
 PAGE PAGE 
 
 By rail to Stonehaven — Dun- 
 nottar, 334 
 
 Aberdeen— Aberdeen Prayer— 
 Knockoniie .... 335 
 
 Inverness — Increase of "Col- 
 leges," . . . . .336 
 
 Aviemore, 337 
 
 Elliot's case, .... 338 
 David Haggart's — Mrs. Mackin- 
 
 non's, 339 
 
 Perth, 341 
 
 Edward Maitland — Francis Pais- 
 
 selL ..... 342 
 
 West (Eivatit— ^xttiimn 1848. 
 
 Sheau ferry, . . . . 345 | Other places and dates, . 346-348 
 
 giQxVci OTircttit— ^utttttttt 1849. 
 
 Dunkeld and its Dnke, . . 351 
 Northern routes, particularly one 
 
 to Sutherland, . . 351-353 
 
 Highland road — coach accident, 353 
 
 Case about a Highland clearing, 354 
 
 Inverness injured by loss of its 
 
 Bridge — Sand Hills of Forres, 
 
 and Dalvey Garden, . 356 
 
 Pluscarden, .... 356 
 
 Altyre, 357 
 
 Abei'deen niurder, . . . 358 
 Drum — Strath Dee, with 
 
 Royalty, 360 
 
 Castleton and Glenshee— Royal 
 rapidity — Lyell's Second Visit 
 to America, .... 361 
 
 Ollaj^g^to Circuit— Januarg 1850. 
 
 Pages 362, 363. 
 
 TO^^t Cirruxt— <^}n-il 1850. 
 
 Railway to Loch Lomond, . . 364 | Tarbet, 365 
 
 gauth (Eirmit— gcytcmbi^r 1850. 
 
 Unwell 367 
 
 WizQi Cirmit— ^^ril 1851. 
 
 Moncreili's death, . . . 368 | Smollett's Monument, . . 369 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 cSaittb ODirmit— geirtcmbev 185 1. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Valuable accident, , 372 
 
 #0rth (Eimitt— Jlpril 1852. 
 
 Death of Lord Pannnire, . 378, 380 
 Hyacinths, . . . 380, 381 
 
 Murders this Circuit, . ^. . 381 
 A. S. Logan, . . ' . .382 
 Dundee Blackguardism — 
 
 Broughty, . . . . .373 
 
 Westhall, 374 
 
 Bennachie — Castle Forbes — 
 
 Monymusk, .... 375 
 Garioch — Knockomie, . . 376 
 Case of the Frasers at Inverness j Weather— David Mure — Books, 
 
 — Miss Macpherson, Forres, . 377 \ Adaw^ Grahame of Mossgray ^■n(\. 
 Death of Gordon of Craig, . 378 j the Edinburgh Review, . . 384 
 
 WczQi Cirruit— ODrtober 1852. 
 
 Stirling, startled horses, . . 385 1 Glasgow— Edward Gordon, . 386 
 
 Oilasgoto Cirrttit— raintec 1853. 
 
 Pages 387, 388. 
 
 §mith Cirmit— gprtng 1853. 
 
 Jedburgh and Melrose, . . 389 j Underwood and Kobert Kennedy, 391 
 Hard labour, . . . 390 I Andrew Clark, . . . .394 
 
 #orth Cimtit— §e:ptcmb^r 1853. 
 
 Lord Anderson's death — Rossie 
 Ochil, 398 
 
 Lord Deas, 399 
 
 A handsome thief — Justice- 
 Clerk's judicial lectures, . 400 
 
 Scotch proverb, .... 401 
 
 §0ttth Cirmit — §^ring 1854. 
 
 of Alexander Cunninghame, 403 | Bay of Ayr on a calm mild day, 404 
 INDEX, . . , , 407 
 
 Dubton, 
 
 
 395 
 
 Penal servitude— Aberdeen 
 
 ships 
 
 
 —Wreck— Deeside, 
 
 
 396 
 
 The Leg of Mutton, . 
 
 
 397 
 
 Glenshee, . 
 
 
 397 
 
CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 BoNALY, 28^/i March 1838. — I have got this volume 
 (prepared under the personal directions of Thomas Mait- 
 land, the first of gentlemen binders) in order to record 
 anything remarkable that may occur in my Circuits. It 
 will be my fate to perform these journeys, being a Criminal 
 Judge, as long as I am fit for anything, and it gives scenes, 
 which repetition generally makes dull, an interest to have 
 one's attention called, by the excitement of a diary, to 
 occurrences which, however insignificant to strangers, are 
 important to the individual engaged, and who always 
 regrets to find that the impression of them is gone, 
 
 I wish that the Court of Justiciary had always had a 
 Judge who left such a journal. The very uniformity of 
 its subjects, implying a description from age to age of the 
 same sort of occurrences and of the same parts of the 
 country, and, of course, of their gradual changes, would 
 have given it a value which detached records, though indi- 
 vidually more curious, could not have possessed. If even 
 Fountainhall, though not nearly far enough back, had im- 
 parted his observing and recording spirit to one of each 
 series of his successors, what a curious picture would their 
 
 A 
 
2 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 continued memoranda have by this time given us of 
 singular local men, of the changes of districts, of the 
 progress of the law, of important trials, of strange manners, 
 and of striking provincial events. 
 
 I did not think of keeping any note of my Circuit 
 memorabilia till lately ; so I must mention my two first 
 expeditions from memory. 
 
WEST CIECUIT. 
 
 Autumn 1837. 
 
 ZOth March 1838. — My first Circuit was the West, 
 which began at Stirling on Saturday the 16th of Sep- 
 tember 1837. 
 
 I went on the 14th, with my friend Sir Thomas 
 Lauder, to Airthrie, to visit my cousin (by affinity), Lord 
 Abercromby, and passed two delightful days at his hospi- 
 table house and most beautiful place. The whole of the 
 forenoon of the 15 th was passed with Sir Thomas and 
 John Kirkpatrick, Esq., late Chief- Justice of the Ionian 
 Islands, on Demyat Hill. The day was delightful ; I can 
 scarcely conceive nobler prospects than there are from 
 that mountain. It is one of the many places which make 
 us not at all afraid to boast of Scotland, even in comparison 
 with Switzerland. Our solitude and elevation derived an 
 additional charm from the distant view of the people 
 sweltering below at the Stirling races. Nevertheless, having 
 an excellent telescope, we could not resist the temptation 
 of looking at a race, which we saw better and more 
 minutely than many who were on the course. 
 
 Lord Moncreiff was my colleague. We finished the 
 business on Saturday the 16th. On Sunday we went in 
 procession to church, guarded by part of a regiment 
 of the line, but without music, an omission which would 
 ha.ve been deemed Jacobinical a few years ago, but which 
 the modern notions of Sunday require. The pious have, 
 
4 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 within these six or eight years, taken his music even from 
 his Majesty's Commissioner to the General Assembly. 
 
 We had a very pleasant party (for a Circuit) at dinner 
 that day, including Mrs. Cockburn, my daughters Graham 
 and Elizabeth, and my niece, Eliza Maitland, and sundry 
 redcoats. The Provost was so charmed with my talk 
 (I suppose) that he rose and proposed my health witli 
 all the honours. Moncreiff checked this compliment. But 
 the chance of such an occurrence is one of the many 
 things which show the inexpediency of these Circuit 
 dinners. 
 
 On Monday the 18th Moncreiff and I parted. He went 
 to Inveraray, I to Eenfrewshire. I got to my brother-in- 
 law's at Barr, by Lochwinnoch, to dinner. Stayed there 
 till Tuesday night, when I went to Glasgow, and tried 
 civil causes from Wednesday morning till Saturday evening, 
 when I returned to Barr and remained there till Monday 
 the 25th, when I went to Fossil, near Glasgow, the resi- 
 dence of Archibald Alison, the Sheriff of Lanarkshire, 
 where I met Moncreiff, and where we continued all 
 night. 
 
 Next morning, Tuesday, 26th September 1837, we made 
 a grand procession into the Court, the grandest I ever 
 saw at a Scotch Circuit ; there were four carriages and 
 four, besides four or five with two horses, — plenty Lancers, 
 in all their bravery of men and steeds, — rows of well- 
 drilled police, — music, — gazers, etc. It took us till the 
 evening of the next Tuesday to dispose of the criminal cases. 
 
 I am happy to say that there were unusually few pleas 
 of guilty. These pleas are odious. They sometimes happen 
 from genuine contrition, sometimes from despair, and 
 sometimes from a desire to hide the atrocious features of 
 the offence by preventing their disclosure in evidence. But 
 confessions from these causes are very rare ; the common 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN, \%y]. 5 
 
 cause is an idea that saving trouble will conciliate the 
 Court. And accordingly it sometimes has this effect far 
 too much, and a very few years ago it had to a shameful 
 degree. It mitigated the sentence not merely truly, but 
 avowedly. It was quite common to hear it stated from the 
 Bench as one of the reasons why peculiar leniency was 
 shown, that the prisoner " had pleaded guilty, and therehy 
 saved the Court all trouble." This was the phrase ; and the 
 judicial feeling occasionally assumed the still worse form 
 of its being stated to the prisoner as an aggravation of his 
 guilt, that, instead of acknowledging what he must have 
 known to be true, he had gone to trial. There was a case 
 within these last eight years, in which a prisoner's counsel 
 advised and forwarded a petition for mercy to Govern- 
 ment, founded on this sentiment having been uttered from 
 the Bench at passing sentence. It is the principle of a 
 great majority of the Court to let pleas of guilty have no 
 effect whatever on the punishment. And indeed it is rare 
 to find a case in which a sane man can dream of pleading- 
 guilty, unless it be to please the Court, and thereby to 
 soften the. sentence. By going to trial he has always the 
 chance of escaping, and he can only be convicted at the 
 worst. So what the better — except with a view to the 
 result — is he of confessing ? Even a wish to conceal the 
 aggravations of his guilt, which is the most rational motive 
 for this course, is only a good one on the supposition that 
 the Court in awarding the punishment goes beyond the 
 facts asserted in the indictment, or lets itself be more 
 inflamed by the witnesses' descriptions of the occurrences 
 than by the prosecutor's. Pleas of guilty, therefore, are a 
 bad sign of the Court. 
 
 There were two convictions for murder — one against a 
 woman for drowning her child, and one against a man, a 
 tobacco-spinner, who first married a woman who he knew 
 
6 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 had several illegitimate children, and then, from jealousy^ 
 killed her by repeated stabs. They were both sentenced 
 to be executed at Paisley on the same day. The woman's 
 sentence was commuted into the strange substitute of 
 imprisonment for four years, but the man's was carried 
 into effect. 
 
 I tried his case, and consequently had to pronounce the 
 sentence — the first capital one I ever pronounced, and I 
 hope the last. It is a very painful duty. 
 
 There is a great art in pronouncing sentences. The old 
 judges used generally to abuse the prisoner. The feelings 
 of a later age would not tolerate this. But they have 
 introduced a sermonising system which it requires some 
 courage in any judge to avoid. Even in the slightest case 
 — not extending beyond imprisonment — the prisoner 
 must always be reminded of his latter end and of his im- 
 mortal soul, and two of us very rarely ever fail to point 
 out the way to salvation by actually naming Redemption 
 and the Redeemer. There are others (inter quos ego) who 
 think that more direct and practical expositions of the 
 personal and immediate consequences of crime are more 
 likely to operate on worldly audiences and worldly villains. 
 The misfortune of the religious plan is, that as adherence 
 to it is thought a duty, it is apt to lose its effect by 
 being applied indiscriminately to every case. A proper 
 mixture of the two would be the best thing. 
 
 Moncreiff, the most excellent of men, and one of the 
 most admirable of judges, but whose piety and simplicity 
 sometimes give him odd views, has signalised himself 
 twice, in passing sentence, by principles which have 
 greatly diverted his friends, and produced much specula- 
 tion among English lawyers, as I heard his friend 
 Brougham, when Chancellor, tell him. 
 
 Once was in dooming a man to die for murdering a 
 
WEST CIRCUn— AUTUMN \%y]. 7 
 
 female who lived with him. It was altogether a shocking 
 case, but his Lordship found out, and debated upon this 
 peculiar atrocity, that the woman he had killed was not 
 his wife, but only his mistress, because, as he explained, if 
 she had been your wife, there might possibly have been 
 some apology for you, on account of the difficulty of 
 getting quit of a wife in any other way. But this un- 
 fortunate woman being only your associate, you might 
 have freed yourself from her whenever you chose. How 
 Brougham revelled over this discovery, that it was a less 
 crime to murder a wife than to murder a mistress ! 
 
 His other view I had heard of before, but I actually 
 heard it personally at this Circuit. Both were cases of 
 bigamy ; and his Lordship after explaining, as anybody 
 else might have done, the usual atrocities of the offence, 
 such as the perfidy and cruelty to both women, the con- 
 fusion and destitution of families, etc., added, nearly in 
 these words : — " All this is bad ; but your true iniquity 
 consists in this, that you degraded that holy ceremony 
 which our blessed Saviour condescended to select as the 
 type of the connection between him and his redeemed 
 church." He put a strong emphasis upon the word con- 
 descended ; why, I know not. I must do the public the 
 justice to say that it did not seem to sympathise w^ith the 
 statement that this was the chief guilt of bigamy. 
 
 If I were a culprit, I Avould rather be sentenced by 
 Moncreiff" than by any judge I have ever known. He is, 
 in general, very sensible, and always very kind, and never 
 dreams of making it an occasion for display, but addresses 
 the prisoner almost as if he were an unfortunate friend, 
 for whose temporal and eternal welfare he had a deep 
 anxiety, to whom he pointed out penitence and the forma- 
 tion of better habits as the only means of reaching future 
 happiness, and of whose reformation he rarely despaired. 
 
GLASGOW CIRCUIT. 
 Winter 1838. 
 
 S 1st March 1838. — The Glasgow Winter Circuit began 
 on Tuesday, 9th January 1838, and closed on the evening 
 of Friday the 12 th. I was engaged with the famous case 
 of the cotton-spinners at Edinburgh,^ and only got to Glas- 
 gow on the evening of the 9th. Lord Medwyn took the 
 first day at Glasgow alone. 
 
 Nothing particular took place at this Circuit, except that 
 everybody was under the deepest anxiety about the result 
 of the cotton-spinners' case which I had left unfinished; and 
 so all our thoughts were of Trades Unions and the guilt 
 that is apt to adhere to combinations. There was indeed 
 a trial of a man called Thomas Eiddle for the offence of 
 compelling a workman by violence to give over working. 
 This case fell to me. He pleaded guilty, but got no re- 
 ward, for he was transported for seven years, being the 
 full measure that would have been dealt to him after the 
 toughest resistance. I had no warning, and consequently 
 no premeditation, but on the spot gave him an address 
 which has had its full crop of undeserved praise. It 
 was not only circulated extensively both here and in 
 England, but was applauded in the House of Commons 
 (about a month ago) when the case of the cotton-spinners 
 was under discussion. And all this solely because while 
 
 1 The Glasgow cotton-spinners' (Hunter, etc.) trial at Edinburgh, begun 
 Jan, 3, and ended Jan. 11, 1838. 
 
GLASGOW CIRCUIT— WINTER 1838. 9 
 
 it pointed out the criminality of violence, it judicially 
 acknowledged the innocence of mere combination, and thus 
 removed the imputation that Courts did not do justice to 
 workmen.^ 
 
 Medwyn, in addressing the sheriffs and magistrates 
 gave a lecture, and a good one, on the same subject, to 
 which the Sheriff of Lanarkshire, Alison, took occasion to 
 add a long discourse, giving a view of the morals and 
 statistics of strikes and unions. 
 
 These three addresses may be found in Swinton's 
 report of the trial of the cotton-spinners. Alison's has 
 been expanded into an article in the forthcoming number 
 of the Edinburgh Bevieiv, written by himself. 
 
 This is the second time that my friend Alison has made 
 a long speech after the judge, a very dangerous and un- 
 usual practice, which he probably won't be allowed to 
 repeat. The first time he tried it, a bailie attempted to 
 compel the Court to let him answer, as he said that the 
 Sheriff had attacked the Town Council, which shows the 
 inexpediency of tolerating such harangues. 
 
 1 See Swinton's Report of Hunter, etc., cotton-spinners, Appendix, 
 p. 28. " Proceedings against Thomas Riddle, Glasgow, 11th Jan. 1838," 
 see Journals, vol. i. p. 60. 
 
NOETH CIRCUIT. 
 
 Spring 1838. 
 
 AviEMORE, Thursday, 12th April 1838. — I am here 
 upon the North Circuit, which begins at Inverness on 
 Saturday the 14th. 
 
 I left Edinburgh on Monday last, the 9th, with my 
 daughters Jane and Graham. Jane not being strong, we 
 resolved to take it leisurely. So we slept the first night 
 at Perth. I walked nearly two hours along the water side 
 on the North Inch, and watched the fishers toiling very 
 fruitlessly for salmon. The watcher at the bridge told me 
 next morning that in the last twenty-four hours they had 
 only killed one fish. 
 
 Next day we Avent to Dunkeld, — to Pitlochrie — to 
 Kindrogan, the residence of my old friend Patrick 
 Small Keir, where we stayed till this morning. 
 
 The whole of this country, from Edinburgh to Kin- 
 drogan, except that constantly wet, cold, and dull region 
 of Kinross, is beautiful. But this is not the season to see 
 it in. I used to think that Scotch scenery depended so 
 much on rock, hill, water, and fir, that the foliage of 
 deciduous wood was of less importance to it than to most 
 other scenery. There are some parts of the Highlands 
 where this is true, — where leaves do little for the dark 
 mountain, the perpetual pine, the gleaming cataract, and 
 the blue loch. But in general it is not true. I could 
 scarcely have conceived that a tract of country which has 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING, 1838. 11 
 
 SO many noble fixed features could suffer so much in its 
 appearance from the foliage being still dead. It has a 
 great deal of good moderate forest trees, and is everywhere 
 richly sprinkled with birch. I have often seen it at this 
 season, but I had forgotten the bareness and coldness of 
 the leafless stems ; the want of colour over the wooded 
 surface ; the exposure of everything ; the disproportioned 
 bringing out of the evergreen firs, and the general dead- 
 ness. Even Dunkeld seemed chill and unsettled, with its 
 picturesque slate quarries brought too near, its long wintry 
 reaches of cold, steelly water, and its cathedral, apparently 
 rising and staring over the country. It is grievous to see 
 how the last savage winter has desolated the ornamental 
 evergreens. There are few sorts that have not suffered, 
 but the Arbutus and Laurustinus seem, in general, to be 
 destroyed. 
 
 Kindrogan, which I never saw before, is a very nice 
 little Highland place. A sensible house, picturesque 
 rocks, good hills, and an excellent stream. We w^ere most 
 kindly treated, and very happy. 
 
 Killiecrankie looked worse, from its nakedness, than even 
 Dunkeld. It is common to abuse the country from the 
 Pass to this. I have always thought it magnificent. Even 
 the solitude and desolation of Dalwhinnie is sublime. 
 The approach to Aviemore becomes interesting soon after 
 the waters begin to flow Spey-ward, till at last the full 
 prospect of these glorious Cairngorms, with their forests 
 and peaks and valleys, exhibits one of the finest pieces of 
 mountain scenery in Britain. To-day they were covered 
 with snow, which had to be cut several feet deep in four 
 places on the road. 
 
 The first time I was in this inn was in 1797 or 1798, 
 when, with two other boys, I made a tour in a gig to Inver- 
 ness, and home by Fort Augustus, and over Corryarrick. 
 
12 CIR C Ul r fO URNE YS. 
 
 My studies in the chaise have hitherto been the new- 
 number of the Edinburgh Review, and the last volume of 
 Lockhart's Life of Scott. The review is not just yet 
 published (No. 135). The striking article is the first, on 
 the abuses of the press, hy Brougham. It is a curious per- 
 formance, and will produce much discussion. The portraits 
 of his contemporaries are worthy of Clarendon. They are 
 all too favourably drawn. Lockhart mentions Scott as 
 having gone to see my old client, Mrs. Smith, who was 
 guilty, but acquitted, of murder by poison (vol. vii., chap. 
 1, p. 25). The case made a great noise. Scott's descrip- 
 tion of the woman is very correct. She was like a 
 vindictive masculine witch. I remember him sitting 
 within the bar, looking at her. Lockhart should have 
 been told that as we were moving out. Sir Walter's re- 
 mark upon the acquittal was : " Well, sirs ! all I can say 
 is, that if that woman was my wife, I should take good 
 care to be my own cook." 
 
 Inverness, 7^nV% Night, IBth April 1838.— We left 
 Aviemore to-day at eleven, and got here about three. A 
 beautiful day. There are three interesting things in this 
 part of the road, — the wood of Scotch firs (I forget its 
 name) near the Bridge of Carr, the branches being more 
 gnarled and tossed about like those of forest trees, than 
 any fir branches I ever saw, — the long, deep, pastoral 
 descents and rises of the road ; and the glorious bursts of 
 the Moray Firth, and the Ross-shire and other hills 
 when the height, about five miles from Inverness, is 
 gained. Yet some monsters are improving the country (as 
 they no doubt call it) by planting out these magnificent 
 prospects, by lining the road with abominable stripes of 
 wretched larch trees. Our only hope is in the boys and 
 the cattle. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1838. 13 
 
 My heart will ever warm at the mention of the Bridge 
 of Carr. The first time I was ever at Kelugas, the 
 Paradise formerly possessed by my friend Sir Thomas Dick 
 Lauder, now above twenty years ago, he joined the late 
 excellent Dr. Gordon, Mr. Macbean, and me, who had 
 come from Edinburgh there ; and what a day ! and how 
 many happy days ! succeeded that meeting ! After an 
 alarming breakfast — alarming both from its magnitude 
 and its mirth, we rolled along in two gigs, on a splendid 
 autumnal day, till we annihilated the twenty-two miles 
 between us and Eden ; where began the first of a course 
 of almost annual visits, hallowed in my memory by scenery 
 and friendship, by the society and progress of a happy 
 family, and, above all, by the recollection of Gordon. 
 The Bridge of Carr brings them all to my eye, and to my 
 heart. 
 
 HuNTLY, Tuesday, \1th April 1838, Night. — On Saturday 
 the 14th, I was in Court till midnight. 
 
 The only curious case was that of Malcolm M'Lean, a 
 fisherman from Lewis, who is doomed to die upon the 
 11th of May, for the murder of his wife. He admitted 
 that he killed her, and intentionally, but the defence by 
 his counsel was that he was mad at the time. There was 
 not the slightest foundation for this, for though he was 
 often under the influence of an odd mixture of wild 
 religious speculation, and of terrified superstition^ he had 
 no illusion, and in all the affairs of life, including all his 
 own feelings and concerns, was always dealt with as a 
 sound practical man. One part of his pretended craziness 
 was said to consist in his making machinery to attain the 
 perpetual motion, and his believing that he had succeeded. 
 This shows that this famous problem is not in such vogue 
 as it once was. But the thing that seemed to me to be 
 
14 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 the oddest in the matter, was the perfect familiarity with 
 which the common Celts of Lewis talked and thought of 
 the thing called the perpetual motion, whatever they 
 fancied it. Their word for it, according to the common 
 process of borrowing terms with ideas, was, ^^ Perpetual 
 Motion" pronounced and treated by them as a Gaelic ex- 
 pression. The words "Perpetual motion," were used in 
 the middle of Gaelic sentences without stop or surprise, 
 exactly as we use any Anglified French term. 
 
 This man's declaration, which told the whole truth with 
 anxious candour, contained a curious and fearful descrip- 
 tion of the feelings of a man about to commit a deliberate 
 murder. He had taken it into his head that his wife was 
 unkind, and perhaps faithless to him, and even meant to 
 kill him, and therefore he thought it better, upon the 
 whole, to prevent this by killing her, which accordingly, 
 on a particular day, he was determined to do. He went 
 to work on a piece of ground in the morning, thinking, 
 all the time he was working, of going into the house and 
 doing the deed, but was unwilling and infirm. However, 
 he at last resolved, went in, sat down, she at the opposite 
 side of the fire, the children in and out, but still he could 
 not, and went to work again. After reasoning and dream- 
 ing of the great deed of the day, he went to the house 
 again, but still could not, and came out ; and this alternate 
 resolving and wavering, this impulse of passion, and this 
 recoiling of nature recurred most part of the day, till at 
 last, sitting opposite to her again, he made a sudden 
 plunge at her throat, and scientifically Burked her by 
 compressing the mouth and nose, after which a sore fit of 
 sated fury succeeded, which gave way, when people began 
 to come in, to an access of terror and cunning, which made 
 him do everything possible for his own safety, till tired of 
 wandering about^ and haunted by some of his religious 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT—SPRING 1838. 15 
 
 notions, he went towards Stornoway to redeliver himself 
 (for he had been previously taken, but escaped), when he 
 was discovered. He is now low and resigned, and says 
 he has not been so comfortable for years, because he has 
 got the better of the Devil at last, and is sure of defying 
 him on the 11th of May. 
 
 I never left home for ten days without finding an 
 acquaintance gone before I returned. One letter, received 
 yesterday, informs me of the death of Sir James Fergusson 
 of Kilkerran, of my old schoolfellow M'Donald of StafFa, 
 and of William Murray, a boy, the son of the Lord 
 Advocate. This last is the saddest possible death. He 
 was a nice clever boy ; the only child of his parents \ and 
 the only hope of the House of Henderland. I fear it will 
 extinguish his mother, his father, and his uncle, the head 
 of the family. 
 
 I went officially to church on Sunday, and was again in 
 Court yesterday till twelve at night. To-day we came 
 here, amidst a strong bitter wind, loaded with driving 
 snow, which has been our fare since Tuesday morning, 
 this being the end of our last vernal month. 
 
 [I refreshed myself again with a walk over the ruins of 
 Elgin Cathedral, along with my daughter Graham. What 
 a pile ! And what fragments ! It is now in very toler- 
 able order ; certainly by far the best kept old ruin, public 
 or private, in Scotland; a country which disgraces itself 
 by its disregard of its ancient buildings, and the base uses 
 to which it lets them be turned. The merit of putting 
 Elgin in order belongs partly to the Crown, but still more 
 to an old man who for above forty years has had the 
 charge of showing the Cathedral and has spent his life in 
 clearing away rubbish, disclosing parts of the building, 
 and preserving fragments, — all literally with his own 
 hands. The name of this combatant of time is John 
 
16 CIR C Ul r JO URNE YS. 
 
 Shanks. The rubbish, he says, " has made an auld man 
 o' me," which, with the help of seventy years, it no doubt 
 has. He used to have a strong taste for whisky, but 
 always a stronger one for the antiquities and relics of the 
 cathedral. He is now a worthy garrulous body, who can 
 only speak however about the tombs and ruins, and 
 recites all the inscriptions as if he could not help it, and 
 is more at home with the statues of the old bishops and 
 soldiers than with his own living family.] ^ 
 
 Perth, iff 07ic%, 23^^ A^ril 1838. — We reached Aber- 
 deen on the 18th, through clouds of snow and bitter 
 blasts. There were three wreaths between Huntly and 
 Pitmachie, which really alarmed me. 
 
 [I know no part of Scotland so much, and so visibly, 
 improved within thirty years as Aberdeenshire. At the 
 beginning of that time, the country between Keith and 
 Stonehaven was little else than a hopeless region of stones 
 and moss. There were j^laces of many miles where lite- 
 rally there was nothing but large white stones of from 
 half a ton to ten tons weight, to be seen. A stranger to 
 the character of the people would have supposed that 
 despair would have held back their hands from even at- 
 tempting to remove them. However, they began, and year 
 after year have been going on making dikes and drains, 
 and filling up holes with these materials, till at last they 
 have created a country which, when the rain happens to 
 cease, and the sun to shine, is really very endurable. 
 
 Moncreiif joined me at Aberdeen, and we were three 
 days in Court there, from morning till past midnight. 
 There was nothing curious in any of the cases. The 
 weather was so bad that we had no public procession, but 
 went to Court privately and respectably. The dignity of 
 justice would be increased if it always rained. Yet there 
 
 ■^ Journals, vol. i. p. 71. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1S38. 17 
 
 are some of us who like the procession, though it can never 
 be anything but mean and ludicrous, and who fancy that 
 a line of soldiers, or the more civic array of paltry police- 
 officers, or of doited special constables, protecting a couple 
 of judges who flounder in awkward gowns and wigs, 
 through the ill-paved streets, followed by a few sneering 
 advocates, and preceded by two or three sheriffs, or their 
 substitutes, with white swords, which trip them, and a 
 provost and some bailie-bodies trying to look grand, the 
 whole defended by a poor iron mace, and advancing each 
 with a different step, to the sound of two cracked trumpets, 
 ill-blown by a couple of drunken royal trumpeters, the 
 spectators all laughing, — who fancy that all this ludicrous 
 pretence of greatness and reality of littleness, contributes 
 to the dignity of justice. Judges should never expose 
 themselves unnecessarily — their dignity is on the bench. 
 
 We have had some good specimens of the condition of 
 jails. One man was tried at Inverness for jail-breaking, 
 and his defence was that he was ill-fed, and that the 
 prison was so weak thc.t he had sent a message to the 
 jailor that if he did not get more meat lie ivould not stay in 
 another hour, and he was as good as his word. The Sheriff 
 of Elgin was proceeding to hold a court to try some people, 
 when he was saved the trouble by being told that they 
 had all walked out. Some of them being caught, a second 
 court was held, since I was at Inverness, to dispose of 
 them ; when the proceedings were again stopped from the 
 very opposite cause. The jailor had gone to the country 
 taking the key of the prison with him, and the prisoners 
 not being willing to come forth voluntarily, could not he 
 got out. Lord Moncreiff (who joined mc at Aberdeen) 
 tells me that when he was Sheriff of Kinross-shire, there 
 was an Alloa culj)rit who was thought to be too powerful 
 for the jail of that place. So they hired a chaise and sent 
 
 B 
 
1 8 CIR C UIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 officers with him to the jail of Kinross, where he was 
 lodged. But before the horses were fed for their return, 
 he broke out, and wishing to be with his friends a little 
 before finally decamping, he waited till the officers set 
 off, and then returned to Alloa, without their knowing it, 
 on the hack of the chaise that had brought him to Kinross, 
 with them in i^.] ^ 
 
 Aberdeen is improving in its buildings and harbour. 
 The old town is striking and interesting, with its venerable 
 college, its detached position, its extensive links, and 
 glorious beach. But the new and larger city is cold, 
 hard, and treeless. The grey granite does well for public 
 works where durability is obviously the principal object, 
 but for common dwelling-houses it is not, to my taste, 
 nearly so attractive as the purity of the white freestone, 
 or the richness of the cream-coloured. Polishing and fine 
 jointing improve it much, but this is dear, and hence the 
 ugly lines of mortar betw^een the seams of the stones. 
 
 We came here by the coast, by far 4he best way. 
 Except Glamis there is nothing on the inland road. 
 Montrose is one of the most English-looking towns in 
 Scotland, Kelso excepted. I scarcely know a more 
 picturesque street than its main one, with its windings, 
 its gables turned outwards, its painted outsides and 
 general appearance of neatness and comfort. They have 
 built a spire since I was last there, or at least I had for- 
 gotten it. 
 
 I once more visited the ruins of Arbroath Cathedral. 
 It has been immensely improved by the recent removal of 
 several feet of rubbish, which had been allowed to accumu- 
 late within the w^alls. The removal, besides giving the 
 place an air of protection and decency, has disclosed the 
 bases of many pillars, figures, coffins, and other relics, But 
 ■^ Journals, vol. i. 172-4. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1838. 19 
 
 the building was made of too soft a stone, and is moulder- 
 ing rapidly. 
 
 I also went this morning and saw the rocks where Scott 
 makes the couple be overtaken by the sea, and saved by 
 Edie Ochiltree. They are noble rocks, and were well 
 chafed by noble waves. 
 
 The whole features of this place suit the descriptions of 
 the novel, and now, indeed, they derive their chief interest 
 from their doing so. Arbroath is well painted in the de- 
 scription of Fairport, and as we look at the little harbour, 
 the fishing-boats on the beach, the ruined abbey, and the 
 steep wave-worn rocks on the shore, the whole story, with 
 all its incidents, characters, and names, recur to the memory. 
 
 That glorious drive through the Carse of Gowrie was 
 obscured by thick rain. 
 
 Edinburgh, 30//i April 1838. — "We had tough work at 
 Perth, which it took four and a half days to get through. 
 We were only free yesterday about three, and got home in 
 the evening,and a clear, beautiful, though cold evening itwas. 
 
 Two things deserving of notice occurred in the course of 
 the business. 
 
 One was, that we had a bigamist before us. I again 
 threw the case into Moncreiff's hands, in the expectation 
 of hearing the curious sentiment I have already mentioned. 
 But the train failed. He left it out, for the first time 
 I believe in sentencing such a culprit, and made a good 
 rational address. 
 
 The other was, that we had an example of that horrid 
 piece of nonsense, invented within these twenty years by 
 the Court of Justiciary, and called by the inventors " The, 
 option'' The absurdity cannot possibly last long, and for the 
 edification of posterity it may be as well to tell what it was. 
 
 Some people think it cruel, and conducive to perjury, 
 
20 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 to compel parents or children to give evidence against 
 each other ; others — of whom I am one — admit it to be 
 painful, but think that everything must yield to the 
 necessities of justice, and that nothing is so cruel as that 
 an innocent man should be convicted because a son is 
 indulged in protecting his father by silence, which may 
 happen in many ways. What is thought the humane side 
 prevails at present in our criminal law. But it occurred 
 to some of the judges, about twenty years ago, that, as the 
 indulgence was granted solely from delicacy to these 
 relations, it was competent to them to reject it if they 
 chose. They therefore introduced The option, by which 
 parents and children might hang each other or not, just 
 as they pleased, unless they happened to be under pupil- 
 larity, in which case, being held incapable of discretion, 
 they are always rejected. 
 
 The practical operation of this folly is this : — A mother 
 is on trial for her life. Her daughter is called as a witness 
 against her. The Court tells her she has the option. She 
 is a person of right feelings, and declines to testify. The 
 possession of such feelings is a proof that she is worthy of 
 being credited, even in the case of a parent. Nevertheless, 
 truth is defied, and the claims of justice disregarded, for 
 her comfort. But if she had been a monster, to whom 
 hanging her mother was a luxury, that is, if she had been 
 a person who exercised this option by preferring to give 
 evidence, then she proves herself to be utterly incredible. 
 Yet, just on this account, she is admitted to be sworn. 
 And if the whole family be true to each other, as is 
 commonly (but not always) the case, then all the light de- 
 pending on parents and children is utterly excluded. A 
 father may cut his wife's throat with complete safety, pro- 
 vided he takes care to perform the operation before no- 
 body but her ten grown-up sons and daughters. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1838. 21 
 
 In the case at Perth, a man called Murray was charged 
 with having forged his son's name. But the son, 
 who alone could prove the forgery, took advantage of 
 this notable option, and refused to answer, on which 
 the witness and the accused walked out of the Court 
 arm in arm. 
 
 The thing is particularly absurd in the case of forgery. 
 Because, where the person whose signature is forged is 
 alive and accessible, his testimony, being the best 
 evidence, is indispensable. If the person forged upon 
 were the person injured, the option would not be allowed. 
 But the Court has decided that the person injured is he 
 who has been defrauded by the uttering. So that all 
 forgeries are safe that are committed by parents or 
 children on each other, and whose respective affection for 
 each other is stronger than their regard for public justice. 
 
 This tissue of necessary nonsense is no part of the law 
 of Scotland. The fear of perjury, — a foolish principle, but 
 one that was not unnatural to superstitious barbarians, 
 played on by cunning churchmen, — made our old law 
 reject such testimony altogether and without distinction. 
 But the option, by which its reception is made to depend 
 on the pleasure or profligacy of each witness, is the pro- 
 duction of a few judges, not at all qualified to legislate on 
 such a subject, within these few years. 
 
 The true principle is, to disregard relationship, except 
 that of husband and wife, as an objection to the com- 
 petency of any witness. 
 
 Perth is the only place I have ever seen where, in the 
 arrangement of the spectators in a public court, there is 
 an entire separation made between the ladies and the 
 gentlemen. The gallery is divided into a male and a 
 female compartment. It looks very odd, but it seems to 
 conduce to silence. The eyes flirt more silently than the 
 
22 CIR CUIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 tongue. I don't understand, however, that this was the 
 object. 
 
 When I was at Elgin, I was told that the people there 
 were disturbed by rumours of an intention on the part of 
 the trustees of the late Duke of Gordon to sell the 
 Bishop's House, a large, square, venerable, red freestone 
 building, almost in contact with the cathedral, and erected 
 at the same time. I instantly wrote to the agent of the 
 Duke of Richmond, who has succeeded the Duke of 
 Gordon, and without whose consent no such proceeding 
 would take place. But on coming home, I find that the 
 disgraceful transaction has been completed, and that since 
 I was there, the Bishop's House, or rather, the Gordon 
 property there, including this house, has actually been 
 sold for about £656. I wish these noble persons, or their 
 representatives, had only let it be known that the saving 
 of such a piece of antiquity depended on their getting 
 £656, for it could easily have been raised in farthings. 
 It is said that the house, which seems to be still entire, is 
 to be taken down, to make way for a villa. them. 
 
 I have long been accustomed to watch for my first 
 swallow towards the end of the Spring Circuit, and almost 
 always to find it. This year I looked for it in vain ; no 
 swallow has been so foolish as to appear yet. 
 
WEST CIRCUIT. 
 
 Autumn 1838. 
 
 Tarbet, Tuesday, Uth Sejjtemher 1838, 11 p.m.— I left 
 home last Saturday, the 8th, with Mrs. Cockburn, my 
 daughter Jane, and my son Henry, at eight A.M., and got 
 to Barr by Lochwinnoch about five. We remained there 
 till this morning, two pleasant, lounging, jolly days. 
 
 We came away this morning at nine, crossed the 
 Clyde at Eenfrew Ferry, and proceeded along the right 
 bank of the water to Dumbarton. The opening of the 
 Clyde there is beautiful and grand. But the tide was out, 
 which greatly impairs it. I have always thought Kil- 
 patrick rather a respectable village, and was glad to see 
 that it still deserved that character. 
 
 I have not been on Loch Lomond since (I think) 1824. 
 I am more and more struck with its magnificence and 
 loveliness. I was never so much impressed as to-day with 
 the cultivated comfort and elegance of the lower end of 
 the lake, where every acre of land exhibits the appearance 
 of culture that is old, and of comfort that is improving. 
 Old trees, old hollies, good roads, good houses, good 
 lodges, all well kept, as if by owners who were proud of 
 their places, and knew how much they were looked at by 
 strangers, all, whether they be on the low ground or on 
 the high, kept in connection with their splendid sheet of 
 water. The Church of Luss is, from its charming posi- 
 tion, beautiful as ever ; but the dirt and squalid wretched- 
 
24 CIRCUIT JOURNE YS. 
 
 ness of the houses and people of that village is a disgrace 
 to the landlords. Such abomination, in such a scene, is 
 one of the unanswerable scandals of Scotland. But the 
 lairds who permit it are the chief brutes. It is perfectly 
 inconceivable, no public infamy is too great for it. And 
 how little it would take, and this little consisting chiefly 
 of kindness, advice, and some authority, to charm the 
 poor people into a higher state of existence, and to make 
 their promontory a paradise. At present, God has planted 
 a garden there, and man a hog-stye. 
 
 Mrs. Cockburn searched the churchyard for some lines 
 which many years ago she had found, and deciphered, on 
 a very old, hoary, tombstone. She succeeded, but the 
 stone had been renewed, possibly in honour of the lines, 
 which are striking, and to me new — 
 
 'Twas when the primrose hailed the infant year, 
 And all was eye, and all was listening ear, 
 My sweet rosebud reclined his weary head, 
 And here he lies among the silent dead. 
 Uncertain life ! How transient is thy show ! 
 How high thy prospects, and thy end how low ! 
 This day in health, a country's pride and boast ! 
 Perhaps to-morrow mingled with the dust ! 
 
 We were here by three o'clock, and are to remain all 
 night. The day has been good, but not bright, and very 
 calm and balmy. Since I was here the new road up by 
 Glenfalloch, and indeed along the whole loch, has been 
 finished, and it is really a luxury to bowl along upon it. 
 The traveller had the pleasure formerly of mounting over 
 the high point of Firkin, and indeed over all the high 
 points, whereby he no doubt got sundry glorious pro- 
 spects, but his toil and impatience were not well fitted to 
 
WES T CIR C UIT—A UTUMN 1838. 25 
 
 make him enjoy them, and it was murderous work for 
 the poor horses. Higher up the loch than this, there 
 was nothing that could be called road at all. The whole 
 edge of the water is now lined by a way so level and so 
 smooth, that no dreamer has any pretence for saying that 
 he is jolted out of his contemplations ; and I am not sure 
 but the loss of the heights is more than compensated, 
 even in point of scenery, by the increased variety of 
 aspects which are opened up at every turn round the bays 
 and promontories. The daily steamer was grunting and 
 belching, with its long tail of polluting smoke. Never- 
 theless this too is good ; the disturbance is very short, the 
 convenience, even to the solitary pilgrim, immense, and it is 
 impossible not to sympathise with the crowds within 
 whose reach it puts the enjoyment of these recesses. 
 
 The evening closed over the loch and the hills in calm, 
 deep darkness, leaving nothing whatever visible, and only 
 one distant little waterfall audible. 
 
 This inn is, for a Scotch one, very good, but far too small 
 for the resort in summer, and far too large for the want of 
 resort in winter. I am always ashamed of our country for 
 its inhospitality, in this respect of inns, to the many 
 strangers who now visit it. The inn near the Trossachs 
 could, perhaps, put up a dozen, or at the very most, two 
 dozen of people ; but last autumn I saw about one hundred 
 apply for admittance, and after horrid altercations, en- 
 treaties, and efforts, about fifty or sixty were compelled to 
 huddle together all night. They were all of the upper 
 rank, travelling mostly in private carriages, and by far the 
 greater number strangers. But the pigs were as comfort- 
 ably accommodated. I saAV three or four English gentlemen 
 spreading their own straw on the earthen floor of an out- 
 house, with a sparred door, and no fire-place or furniture. 
 And such things occur every day there, though the ground 
 
26 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 belongs partly to a duke, and partly to an earl, — Montrose 
 and Willoughby. These are the countrymen of Sir Walter 
 Scott. His genius immortalises the region. This attracts 
 strangers, and this is their encouragement. Is there any 
 part of the Continent where this could happen % 
 
 Inveraray, Wednesday, I2th September 1838, 10 p.m. — 
 A tedious, dull, hot, rainy day, without a breath of wind 
 to move a leaf or a cloud, or a moment's hope that the 
 heavy uniformity was to break up or change. Accordingly 
 it has been true to its promise, and the warm, misty plash 
 has not ceased one moment from seven in the morning till 
 now. Of course we have seen nothing, — nothing at least 
 except the half forms of things, just enough to suggest 
 what would be seen if it were clear, and to revive through 
 the gloom the remembrance of many past expeditions. I 
 trust that Loch Fyne and Loch Long will have brighter 
 faces when I return, and Glencroe a purer verdure, clearer 
 summits, and more sparkling burns. 
 
 Tarbet, Monday, 17 th Se])temher 1838, 9 p.m. — Thvrsday 
 the ISth continued as humid as its immediate elder 
 brother. But as I was in Court till twelve at night, 
 it was all one in so far as I was concerned. Nothing 
 particular in Court except the account which a worthy 
 sempstress of Campbeltown, a witness, gave of her habits. 
 For above twenty-five years she has scarcely ever been in 
 bed after five. The first thing she does after dressing is, 
 to go to a rock about a mile off, and to take a large 
 draught of sea water. She then proceeds about another 
 mile, in a different direction, where she washes the taste 
 of this out by a large draught of fresh water, after which 
 she proceeds home, and about half-past six puts on the 
 tea-kettle and breakfasts. This is a healthy and romantic 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1838. 27 
 
 And therefore I regret to add that it 
 was proved that three or four times a week the rest of the 
 day is given to whisky, a result of early rising which will 
 delight Jeflfrey, to whom morning, except before going to 
 bed, is horrid. 
 
 Friday the \Uh was a beautiful day. The business was 
 done by two. John Murray, the Lord Advocate, who is 
 living at Strachur Park, came over to us in the cutter 
 maintained by the Herring Board, a very nice vessel, with 
 a master and fifteen men. He and Mrs. Murray, and Mrs. 
 Cockburn, and Cosmo Innes, the Advocate-Depute, and 
 others, went up to a pool in the River Ary, about two 
 miles above the castle, where the annual ploy was held of 
 drawing the water the day before the close of the salmon 
 fishing. It seems to have been a gay and picturesque 
 sight. Mr. Lloyd, who married Mrs. Murray's sister, told 
 me that he had never seen, and never expected to see 
 anything like it. To be sure, he is not only an English- 
 man, but lives near Manchester. But the true Scotchmen 
 all concur in describing the scenery, the people, and the 
 activity of the fishers, as very striking. I was not there, 
 because I determined not to cross to Strachur in the 
 cutter, which was the business of one hour, but to drive 
 round with Jane, twenty-one miles, by Cairndow, which 
 was the business of three. 
 
 I can regret nothing that gave me that drive. I can 
 never see a more beautiful evening. All below Cairndow 
 was new to me. The hills were fresh after the rain, the 
 air balmy, and perfectly serene ; the sky not flaring with 
 unbroken brightness, but softened by many clouds; the 
 water streaked by long smooth rays, and large spots of it 
 dazzling with trembling brilliancy. Upon the whole, it 
 was a lovely, pensive scene. No day could die away more 
 
28 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 sweetly. It was near seven when we reached Strachur, 
 and it was not easy to say farewell to the lingering light, 
 and to take one's last look of the still visible outlines of 
 the distant hills. 
 
 Our party consisted of the Advocate, and Mrs. Murray, 
 her sister Mrs. Lloyd, and her husband, the Advocate's 
 brother William, Robert Graham of Lyndoch, Captain 
 Pringle of the Engineers, and ourselves. About eleven at 
 night, Graham and Pringle went on board the cutter, lay 
 down till four, rose and went out in the boat and saw the 
 herring-fishing, came back and lay down again about six 
 till eight, when Pringle went off to Oban to take charge 
 of Babbage the Mathematician, and Graham went to 
 Glasgow to secure a good place for a cow at the approach- 
 ing cattle show. 
 
 Saturday the I5th was still a better day than the one 
 before — brighter, and warmer, and calmer. We passed 
 the whole day, from twelve to half-past six, in the 
 cutter. What . a day ! What scenery ! Our bark lay 
 sleeping on the mirror, so that its motion, whenever we 
 were attracted by a green bit of lawn, a dark grove, or an 
 enviably-placed house, was scarcely perceptible, and it was 
 all that all the airs of Loch Fyne could do to breathe us 
 down towards that most picturesque place, Minard, the 
 hills behind which, seen from a distance up the loch, are 
 not unworthy of being compared, in their outline, even 
 with the peaks of Arran. I was much struck with little 
 Pennymore, nestled behind its rock, amidst its soft green 
 copse. It became so perfectly calm in the evening that 
 we were obliged to take to the boats, and to row ashore 
 the last two miles. 
 
 About eleven o'clock this night intimation came that 
 Mr. Lloyd's sister, her son, and her grandson, had been 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN I'^l^,. 29 
 
 drowned, a few days before, on their passage to Dundee 
 in the Forfarshire steamer which had gone down after 
 striking on one of the Fern Islands near the mouth of 
 the Firth of Forth. This saddened us all. But there 
 were circumstances in the sister's situation which deadened 
 the blow. 
 
 Sunday the 1 6th was, if possible, still more beautiful. 
 Being a Scotch Sunday we had no boating, and indeed 
 whatever day it had been, sympathy w4th the Lloyds 
 would have kept us all quiet. So we just sauntered by 
 the shore, — and talked, and gathered shells, and skiffed 
 flat stones on the surface of the sea, and sat on rocks and 
 lay on the turf, and played with the clear water, and 
 gazed, unceasingly gazed, on the hills, and watched the 
 shadows of the clouds, and observed how the prospects 
 varied w^ith our positions, and with the progress of the 
 sun, and in short had a long luxurious day of repose and 
 enjoyment. There was no church, because the minister had 
 gone to the horse fair at Balloch. The day w^as so calm, 
 that as I was standing on the beach before breakfast, I 
 distinctly heard the barking of a dog on the opposite side 
 of the water. 
 
 Tarbet, 9 P.M. — We left Strachur this morning {Mon- 
 daii, Mth September 1838) at ten o'clock, and came here 
 by Cairndow. The weather has continued most delightful. 
 I again came through the grounds of Ardkinglas. It is an 
 excellent place, which however would not be the worse of 
 a little drainino- or of a thorous^h revision of the trees. 
 There is some noble wood, particularly some magnificent 
 (but dying) silver firs. 
 
 I turned aside from Loch Fyne with great regret. I 
 had never seen so much of it before, and like everything 
 
30 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 new that I see, it has greatly raised even my admiration 
 of Scotland. The whole of these Argyleshire sea lochs 
 are glorious. The boldness and beauty of their scenery, 
 their strange, savage history, their wild language, and 
 (till lately) their delightful inaccessibility, all give them a 
 character of picturesque romance which nothing else in this 
 country resembles. But independently of past associations, 
 what an interest is there in the mere present and external 
 features of Loch Fyne ! The picturesque hills, the bright 
 water, the occasional masses and constant fringing of 
 wood, the jutting and overlapping of the headlands, the 
 apparent closing in of the loch, and its streaming away 
 again into scenes of distant beauty ; the fishing hamlets, 
 with their boats slumbering in quiet bays and little rude 
 harbours ; the long poles loaded with brown nets resting 
 horizontally on the branches of two trees springing from 
 the very beach; then sailing under tanned canvas, on a 
 calm peaceful evening to set these nets, the boats some- 
 times lighted at night by hundreds, and sparkling like a 
 moving city, and all moored again by the morning ; the 
 intercourse between families and villages by boats, which 
 the narrowness of the loch seems to invite; the bright 
 patches of grain amidst the darkness of the wood, or con- 
 trasted by the expanse of the brown hillside ; the breeze- 
 varied appearances of the surface of the water, and the 
 shining and roaring of the mountain streams, — these 
 things give it an endless and irresistible charm. All this, 
 to be sure, is the fascination of fine weather. But if other 
 places also are to be judged of in bad weather, these lochs 
 have nothing to fear. The worst thing is the contrast 
 between the quiet little Indian wigwam-looking hamlets, 
 whm seen at a distance, and their utter abomination when 
 approached. It is horrid that human life should be, 
 passed in these disgusting holes. It is true that fishing 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1838. 31 
 
 especially when combined with curing, cannot be conducted 
 without filth, but there are many proofs that its slobbery 
 nastiness may be concealed, and kept apart from the 
 fishers' dwellings, and that a fishing village may be a 
 beautiful thing. But until the lairds be civilised and 
 cease to be all regularly and systematically bankrupt, it is 
 in vain to expect decency or comfort in the domestic habits 
 of their people. 
 
 The day was perfect for that glorious stage from Cairn- 
 dow to Tarbet. Few things are more magnificent than the 
 rise from Cairndow to Rest-and-be-Thankful. The top of 
 it, where the rocky mountain rises above the little solitary 
 Loch Restal, and all the adjoining peaks are brought into 
 view, is singularly fine. As I stood at the height of the 
 road, and gazed down on its strange course both ways, I 
 could not help rejoicing that there was at least one place 
 where railways, and canals, and steamers, and all these 
 devices for sinking hills, and raising valleys, and intro- 
 ducing man and levels, and destroying solitude and nature, 
 would for ever be set at defiance. 
 
 Loch Lomond has been beautiful. The summits of 
 Ben Lomond and all the neighbouring hills have been 
 bright, and it has been one universal blaze of brilliant 
 calmness. It is a difficult competition between the upper 
 and the lower end of the loch ; but upon the whole, I rather 
 decide for the upper. The islands scattered over the 
 broad part of it are delightful, and for constant residence, 
 there must be an advantage in the openness of the expanse. 
 But the narrow end is far more Swiss-like. The stern, 
 flinty mountains, with their sharp, high-reared ridges, the 
 deep, clear water, the visibleness of the objects on both 
 sides; the storm-defying, precipitous rocks, that repress 
 the little waves ; the soft green promontories that jut out 
 into the loch ; the copse tossed about the bases of the hills ; 
 
82 CIR CUIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 tlie waterfalls, and the long, fringed hollows that contain 
 their streams ; the solitude, the wildness, and apparent 
 absence of appropriation ; — these are the things that would 
 make me prefer a comfortable small house, well placed on 
 a bit of level oasis, two or three miles above this inn, at 
 least for an occasional summer, or during a fit of temporary 
 romance. 
 
 Barr, Wednesday, 19th September 1838, 11 o'clock A.M. — 
 We left Tarbet yesterday morning at ten, and returned 
 here by Luss and Eenfrew at six in the evening. I half 
 wish that, for the sake of variety, we had gone down Loch 
 Long, and reached Dumbarton by Ardenca]3le. But this 
 may be next time, and no one can see Loch Lomond too 
 often. The day was good, and if we had not been spoiled 
 by the super-excellence of the four that preceded it, we 
 would have thought it better than we did. This coming 
 down decides the question in favour of the upper end. 
 The lower one is beautiful, but the Highland character 
 and feelings are gone the moment that the rocky, ridgy 
 mountains become rounded into low, common grazing hills, 
 and agriculture and dressed places appear, instead of 
 bothies, precipices, unchangeable natural features, adven- 
 ture, and heather. 
 
 I go to-day to Glasgow in order to begin business there 
 to-morrow. 
 
 BONALY, Friday, 28th Septemler 1838. — On Wednesday 
 the 19th, I went to Glasgow, and dined with Alison, the 
 sheriff (and the historian), at Fossil House ; a sort of 
 official dinner. I met one distinguished man there — 
 Serjeant Talfourd, whom I had never seen before. He 
 has the good sense to spend his vacation in Scotland 
 frequently, and has been at Glenarbuck, near Dumbarton, 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1838. 33 
 
 all this autumn. He was very agreeable, though he 
 suffered in the estimation of some people by giving Mrs. 
 Alison very nearly an hour of English Circuit cases in 
 rather a high-keyed voice. There was an old Irish colonel 
 there, brilliant in scarlet and lace, who put me down in 
 grand style, because I ventured to doubt the accuracy of his 
 recollection when he said that it was in 1824 that George 
 the Fourth was in Edinburgh, and I insinuated that it was 
 in 1822. 
 
 Next day we paraded to Court in great splendour. 
 Talfourd was in my carriage, and I found him so pleasant 
 that I was sorry when the procession reached the court- 
 house. We talked of the English Courts, Tom Campbell, 
 Brougham, and Richmond the Spy, all of whom he hates. 
 He sat on the bench with us a short while. My colleague 
 was Meadowbank. 
 
 We had our public dinner that day. About fifty 
 attended, including Meadowbank's wife, and her sister and 
 daughter. Excellent turtle and venison. Contrary to 
 rule, Meadowbank drank Talfourd' s health, and, contrary 
 to a still more necessary rule, his Lordship told him that 
 if he chose, he might reply, on which the learned Serjeant 
 made a regular speech. His topics were the excellence of 
 the Scotch scenery he had been living in, and of the 
 Scotch Judges before him. There was another English- 
 man there wbom I ought to have mentioned that I had 
 met, and introduced myself to, at Cairndow. This was 
 Lushington, the new Professor of Greek in Glasgow, in 
 the room of Sandford. He is a very amiable young man, 
 and a great Grecian. His powers as a teacher remain to 
 be seen. I fear he is too soft. 
 
 We had eighty-one cases to try, and this took six entire 
 days. There was a Sunday in the middle of them, which 
 was spent by Meadowbank at Garscube, and by me at Barr. 
 
 C 
 
34 CIR C UIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 The great majority of the cases were thefts, and, in- 
 cluding the whole, I don't think I ever saw so many cases 
 so devoid of interest. A coarse-looking fellow was not 
 only accused of theft, which greatly shocked his friends, 
 he being a laird with a landed rental of £200, but con- 
 victed of it. When he was first detected, he was thrown 
 into great agitation, which he accounted for by saying he 
 was in love. 
 
 My colleague and I being of the same opinion on the 
 absurdity of the practice, there was no sermonising to 
 prisoners. It is clear to me that the idea of a judge doing 
 good, either to the public of villains, or to prisoners in- 
 dividually, by expounding the moral and Christian law to 
 them, with appeals to their consciences, and representa- 
 tions of the consequences of their rejecting, or availing 
 themselves of, the blood of the Redeemer (which has 
 become almost a technical phrase) in each case, is utterly 
 fallacious. The attempt is not merely useless, it is hurtful. 
 There are cases fit for the discourse, and which require it, 
 and the true thing is, to select these well. But practising 
 it in every case, only deadens its impressiveness, and applied, 
 as I have seen it, to a dozen of petty thefts successively, 
 it becomes ludicrous. To be sure it is new to each first- 
 convicted prisoner, who gets it fresh in so far as he is 
 concerned, in his turn. But when the judge's address is 
 so habitually repeated that it becomes a form, there can 
 be no freshness in it. The very prisoners know it by 
 hearsay, or probably, from having often listened to it in the 
 gallery, while they were watching the fate of their comrades 
 who had got to the bar before them ; and there are very 
 few of the public who do not expect it as they do the 
 proclamations by the clerk, or who care for it more. A 
 pious and benevolent judge who thinks that he can gener- 
 ally move the heart of a culprit, and that he ought not to 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN \Z-i%. 35 
 
 lose the opportunity, ought to have private interviews with 
 prisoners, or take any other course rather than let what, 
 well used, may be impressive, and therefore important, 
 degenerate into a hackneyed ceremony, dull and heartless 
 by mere frequency of repetition. 
 
NOETH CIRCUIT. 
 
 Spring 1839. 
 
 Bridge of Tilt Inn, hy Blair, Wednesday Night, 
 10th April 1839. — This Circuit promises to be nearly a 
 facsimile of my North one of last spring, so T have nothing 
 to say. 
 
 I left home yesterday morning at ten, with Jane and 
 Eliza Maitland, and was at Perth all night. 
 
 We left Perth to-day about eleven, and got here by six, 
 though the distance be only about thirty-five miles. But 
 we went about six miles off the road to call at Snaigow, and 
 had to mend the carriage at Dunkeld. 
 
 I could not pass Blair- Adam without remembering the 
 excellent old chief The place shall know him no more. 
 
 And Snaigow ! Mrs. Keay, the widow, was from home ; 
 so I got half an hour of the silent rooms and untrodden 
 walks to myself, a painful, yet irresistible enjoyment. The 
 place is one of the best examples of the triumph of taste 
 within a short period over poor natural features, long 
 aggravated into worse badness by detestable management. 
 Fifteen years ago, it seemed absolutely irreclaimable, and 
 its ugliness was in the worst style of dull, nasty, meaning- 
 less inconvenience. It is now a comfortable, respectable, 
 sensible place, with all the old abominations of stone fences, 
 single rows of wind-bent trees, and wet grass fields re- 
 moved, and a beautiful house, surrounded by well laid-out 
 and well-kept ornamental ground, thriving evergreens, 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1839. 37 
 
 good lawn, and the former wood broken into natural and 
 useful shapes and positions, substituted in their stead. 
 But in all this satisfactory creation, the mind of James 
 Keay predominated, one of the most sensible of men. 
 
 These two days have been beautiful — cold, but bright. 
 There has not been a shower for many weeks, which, at 
 this season, gives the earth an appearance that I like. I 
 have always had a taste for mere well-dressed ground, 
 though there be no vegetable life visible on it. It looks 
 clean, and shows care, and suggests the coming crop. 
 During our whole way from Perth to this, we have been 
 looking down upon the valleys of the Tay and other rivers, 
 where rich fields have been spread out, on which human 
 skill has been not only exerting, but exhibiting all its re- 
 sources, and the dryness of the mould seemed to have 
 made agriculture a pastime, and to have allured the whole 
 population of the straths out to the plough, and the sowing, 
 and the harrows; while the sun, undisturbed by even a 
 zephyr, touched the low grounds with some heat, and the 
 larks and mavises exulted over the scene, as each field was 
 done, and the comfortable horses rattling with their gear, 
 were led into new fields, leaving the finished one to delight 
 the eye, with the dry lines, above all the drains, and all 
 the cleaned ridges, and all the combing and harrowing it 
 had got, with not even a weed to interfere with its purity. 
 It was beautiful. The bare trees looked on in silence, but 
 it was not difiicult for fancy to clothe them, and to an- 
 ticipate summer, and its universal glory. 
 
 It is very satisfactory to see the improvement that is 
 taking place in the dwellings along this glorious drive- 
 They used to be worse than even the pig-styes of Luss. 
 But a great number of comfortable stone houses are made 
 every year, and the old mud huts promise soon to be for- 
 gotten. 
 
38 CIRCUIT JOURNE YS. 
 
 I observed several old women spinning in the sun at 
 their doors, and a great many children playing upon knolls, 
 but lambs only twice, and not a single primrose. It is 
 curious, by the way, how primroses get into districts. Why 
 is Glencroe full of them, and none on the hills or glens 
 between Perth and Inverness % (But query — is this last 
 a fact %) 
 
 I am sorry to see so many of Burn, the architect's, 
 repetitions of himself throughout this picturesque district. 
 There is one of his gimcrack cottage houses at Fascally, 
 two, if not three about Urrard, and one at Lude, all the 
 same, and none of them in keeping with a rough climate 
 and situations of romantic wildness. I lament the 
 destruction of the old house at Fascally ; which, though in 
 violation of all the rules of taste, and probably of the more 
 important rules of internal convenience, had become, and 
 very much from its solemn oddity, a striking object in the 
 Pass. If it had been built now, it would have been taken 
 for a cotton-mill. But its age and situation excluded all 
 such notions. It had a very long line of front, very little 
 depth, and was very high, with not one particle of orna- 
 ment or one inch of projection, its plain windows all in 
 long rows, and was covered with the whitest rough- cast. 
 It was like a compartment of Blair Castle that had walked 
 down the water. I should suppose that it must have had 
 about fifteen windows in front, and been five or six stories 
 high, and not thirty feet deep, — a regular, thin, oblong. 
 Ugly enough, no doubt, and not to be made. But stand- 
 ing, staring, in that deep, wild valley — white, strong, and 
 plain, — long built, and unlike every modern-built thing in 
 that quarter, it referred us to the days of Killiecrankie 
 and the 'Forty-Five, and had become by association as 
 peculiar and natural a feature in that scene as either the 
 rocks or the river. Bat it is all gone, and we have a new 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT-SPRING 1839. 39 
 
 polished freestone cottage in its place, with porches, and 
 pinnacles, and oriel windows, and all the rest of it. Half 
 the money would have made the old edifice a good house, 
 and removed its external defect of sameness, without 
 destroying its peculiar and half-feudal character. 
 
 AviEMORE, Thursday Night, llth April 1839. — A calm, 
 dry, cloudy, heavy day. All the hills, the whole way 
 from Kinross, have had snow on their summits, and the 
 high ones more than half-way down. By Drumochter 
 it was lying thick, in some places, on the very road. 
 Loch Garry was frozen entirely over, and his surface, 
 instead of blue water, was a sheet of unbroken snow. 
 The massiveness of the grey, motionless clouds rather 
 improved the effect of the magnificent mountains by 
 which the whole valley from Blair to this is enclosed. 
 The silence was impressive. Between Dunkeld and this 
 we have only seen two gigs, one mail-coach, and not a 
 dozen of carts. There is little labour in the fields after 
 leaving Blair^ being mostly in natural pasture. The 
 population is far thinner. Except Kingussie, and its 
 neighbour Newtonmore, there is no village, and nowhere 
 any attempt at any manufacture, beyond what can be 
 accomplished by a bad axe or saw, or a little rustic wheel. 
 There is no road so long and so good, from the whole 
 course of which there is such an absence of all that pro- 
 duces artificial sound. And even of the natural sounds I 
 heard none in my walk, except the bleating of a sheep or 
 two, the singing of a few blackbirds, and the roaring of 
 one hill cataract, all of which were heard from a great 
 distance. All this gave the day and the scene a mysterious 
 and somewhat fearful character. 
 
 There are only two things wanted to make Aviemore 
 one of the grandest inland places in Scotland. These are 
 
40 CIK C UI r JO UKNE YS. 
 
 wood, and a house. Yes, if it had only wood and a house, 
 it would do. The house must be a noble old castle, 
 strong and large, but commodious for modern habitation, 
 standing on the left bank of the Spey, somewhere opposite 
 the Doune (or Dune) of Rothiemurchus, but on the table- 
 land above the river, not on the low ground, and with its 
 accompaniments of terraces, evergreens, gardens, and above 
 all, a history. As to the wood, we must begin by clearing 
 the country of at least nineteen parts out of every twenty 
 of that abominable larch with which it pleased the late 
 Rothiemurchus, as it still pleases many Highland lairds, to 
 stiffen and blacken the land. Then mij wood must be 
 almost all forest trees, chiefly sweet chesnut and oak, the 
 average age of the younger ones being about 100 years, 
 so extensive, that, if collected, it would cover at least 
 3000 or 4000 acres, but must be scattered over, and dealt 
 out among, the whole tableland and low hills round my 
 castle. There are few places of which it can be said that 
 only these two improvements, wlikli are both in man's 
 power, would be sufficient. But the natural elements here 
 admit of no good change. My river, and my rocks, and 
 my mountains, and my lakes, and my glens, and my plains, 
 are all perfect. Since I am at it, I should like to give the 
 district a little more of a southern climate. But as I am 
 speaking of Scotland, these two may do. 
 
 There has been more burning of heather, all along, than 
 I remember to have seen before. The fires on the distant 
 hills were striking at night, but not so much so as the long 
 trailing streaks, and the high curling of the smoke during 
 the day. It was endless watching its forms and directions. 
 Neither in the valleys nor on the mountains was it inter- 
 fered with by the slightest wind, but took its own way, 
 with its own lightness. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1839. 41 
 
 , Inverness, lfoyi(%, \Uh Apil 1839, 11 o'clock am. — I 
 came here on Friday the 1 2th at three o'clock ; was in Court 
 on Saturday till midnight, finishing all the business ; pro- 
 cessed to church yesterday forenoon ; gave a dinner to 
 about thirty people, and mean to be off in a little to Nairn. 
 
 The weather has continued beautiful, and few places 
 are more worthy of fine weather than the neighbourhood 
 of Inverness. It is a glorious district, and the spire, the 
 bridge, the river, and the magnificently placed new court- 
 house, give an air of picturesque respectability even to the 
 otherwise mean town, I wish that Playfair had had the 
 planning of the court-house, and not Burn. 
 
 There were only eight or nine cases, all insignificant, 
 except to the culprits. I sent a fellow six months 
 to Cromarty jail for his third assault, and predicted 
 publicly that he would one day commit murder. He 
 is a cunning, violent beast ; writes and reads very well, 
 but is deaf, though not dumb, and takes advantage of 
 his deafness to make some people believe him an idiot, 
 upon the faith of which he thinks he may give way to 
 his fury with impunity, and keeps the whole country-side 
 in terror. I have little doubt of his being convicted 
 of murder, but he will get his sentence commuted on the 
 score of his mental weakness, which is now the ground 
 always taken up by the pious and benevolent, and it is 
 far too often successful. 
 
 Our sermon was by a worthy fanatic called Dr. C . 
 
 There are few things more curious than the decorous 
 appearance of patience with which sensible people can sit 
 and hear a man, with an unattractive manner, roar out two 
 and a quarter hours of sheer absolute nonsense. Yet nothing 
 so common. This is the clergyman whose Circuit prayer 
 Hermand interrupted a few years ago. The reverend 
 gentleman was standing, as usual, beside his Lordship on 
 
42 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 the Bench, praying away, loud and long, as if there had 
 been nothing else to do than to hear him perform, when 
 Hermand gave him a jog with his elbow, and whispered, 
 with his ordinary birr : " We 've. a great deal of business, 
 sir" 
 
 The Sunday costume of the lower orders here on a fine 
 Sunday is peculiar, and rather striking. They go to 
 church with shawls over their shoulders, commonly tartan, 
 and bare heads, their hair tethered in various ways by 
 ribbons, combs, and large brooch-headed pins, but no caps, 
 or any covering for the head. They look like humble 
 people dressed in a room. It suggests the agreeable idea 
 that they think the day good, and that they are enjoying 
 it. They are almost all coarse and uncomely, mostly 
 yellow skinned, with large freckles. 
 
 HuNTLY, Tuesday IQth April 1839, Night. — We left 
 Inverness yesterday about two, and stayed all night at 
 Nairn, where we were joined by Graham Speirs the 
 Sheriff, pious, grave, honest, sound-headed, and very calm ; 
 fit, from firmness, sense, and devotion, united to a black, 
 gaunt, thoughtful countenance, to have been one of 
 Cromwell's majors. Nairn, bleak and exposed, and seem- 
 ingly dead, but Speirs says full of internal bitterness, 
 being fiercely divided into Whigs and Radicals. It pro- 
 duces excellent little fishes, and has a glorious beach. 
 But I have no desire to pass the evening of my days 
 under the brown shade of Nairn. 
 
 Forres would do far better. A very nice, clean, thriving 
 little place, with its old gables still to the street, and its 
 magnificent prospects of the ridgy outlines of the blue 
 hills of Ross-shire, Cromarty, and Sutherland. 
 
 And Elgin would do better still. I am not sure that, 
 except Perth, there is a nicer provincial town in Scotland. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1839. 43 
 
 Placed in a delightful country, with a climate not exceeded 
 in mildness, and a soil not equalled in dryness, by any 
 that we have, it is dignified by the survivance of many of 
 the old ecclesiastical dwellings, of which numerous obvious 
 vestiges are to be seen in the streets \ and the affection 
 of its successful sons is attested by munificent bequests, 
 which their beautiful public buildings show that the exist- 
 ing inhabitants have intelligence to use rightly, while 
 over all there presides the spirit that yet hovers over the 
 ruins of their glorious Cathedral. Old Henry Mackenzie, 
 who married a Grant, and had much intercourse with 
 Morayshire, described Elgin in its old state, before its 
 modern improvements began, as " a melancholy and gentle- 
 manlike place.'' So it was, being respectable, ancient, and 
 silent. It has now far more new life, graced by due 
 antiquity. The scenery of Perth is better, but it has 
 weavers. Montrose, in its main street at least, is grander, 
 but it has ships. Stirling has every interest, a history, 
 picturesque streets, ruins, prospect and its castle, but the 
 town is squalid and cursed by charity. Kelso, Melrose, 
 and Jedburgh, have each its river and its ruin, but they 
 are all paltry, sinking, insignificant places. I cannot 
 recollect such another union of ancient venerableness with 
 modern respectability, and provincial seclusion as in 
 Elgin. 
 
 I wasted an hour on Gordon Castle, which I despised 
 so much when I first saw it, above forty years ago, that I 
 have never taken the trouble to look at it since, often as 
 I have passed it. I find it as contemptible as ever. 
 
 From Fochabers to this is Aberdeenshire, and so will 
 from this to Aberdeen be to-morrow, and no more can be 
 said. 
 
 Beautiful day. 
 
44 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 Perth, Mondmj Night, 22d April 1839.— On Wednesday 
 the 17th we went to Aberdeen, and stayed there till 
 yesterday forenoon. 
 
 I am. more and more astonished at the industry and 
 skill of the Aberdeenshire people in smoothing and drying 
 the horrible surface of their soil. It is the greatest 
 triumph of man over nature, of obstinacy over moss and 
 stones. Talk not of deserts, or swamps, or forests to these 
 people. 
 
 Moncreiff and his son James's wife joined us at Aber- 
 deen, and our previous mirth has not diminished. 
 
 We were in Court all Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 
 with more serious cases than usually occur at Circuits, but 
 no capital conviction. 
 
 We had a most diverting party at the Provost's on 
 Saturday evening ; a quadrille party and a solid supper. 
 His name is Milne, an excellent octogenarian Whig, with a 
 queer, out of the way, capacious, old-fashioned house, and 
 a still more queer and old-fashioned wife, but nice, kind, 
 respectable, natural, happy bodies, with all manner of 
 substantial comforts, and the accent and dialect of the 
 place in great purity. We had the officers of the 74th 
 regiment, remarkably agreeable, gentlemanly men, who 
 had the sense to enjoy the frolic without turning up their 
 noses. On asking the hostess how she got them so soon 
 invited, as it was the idea of a few hours only, " Troth," 
 said she, " I just sent up the lass to the barracks an' bade 
 them a' come doon." The venerable spouse's wig, an old 
 brown one, much the worse of wear, got awry, as she 
 thought, on which she put it right, her own head being 
 too glorious with ribbons and muslin to be seen. " Madam," 
 said he, with great solemnity, " I '11 thank you to let my 
 wig alone, / never meddle ivith yours.'' Much kindness and 
 much laufijhter we had. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1839. 45 
 
 We went to church next forenoon, and heard one of the 
 very best ordinary sermons by Mr. Davidson, one of the 
 town ministers, I have almost ever heard in Scotland. 
 
 They boast much of their new Marischal College. But 
 confined amidst paltry buildings, its position is bad, it 
 has no architecture, and its erection implies the destruc- 
 tion of the old building, which sets all that they will do 
 utterly at defiance. They should be all quashed, and 
 only King's College kept up. We, Moncreiff and his party 
 included, left Aberdeen yesterday at half-past one, and got 
 to Arbroath at seven. A delightful day — mild, calm, and 
 clear, with the sea singularly blue. How peacefully Stone- 
 haven lay in its little quiet bay ! I scarcely ever saw so 
 many people out, lounging about their doors, and walking 
 and lying on the grass. It was our first truly spring 
 Sunday, and every village was enjoying it in a truly 
 Christian way. It was delightful to see so happy and 
 respectable a population. It was scarcely like a Scotch 
 Sunday, for though everything was peaceful and grave, 
 there was no sourness or gloom. Their hearts were bask- 
 ing in the sun. 
 
 I strolled down to the harbour of Arbroath at near 
 twelve at night. The moon was bright, the water 
 trembling in light, and the town impressively still. I 
 walked through all the main streets without encountering 
 a living creature, except one peripatetic cat. 
 
 This morning we (Moncreiffs too) revisited the rocks and 
 the ruins, and then came here, amidst the balm of an 
 almost summer day. The Carse was magnificent. I was 
 on the look-out for my swallow, but did not catch him. 
 The whole drive was a crash of blackbirds, mavises, and 
 larks, with bursting hedges and larches, and field after 
 field left, in beautiful cultivation, to the elements, man's 
 power being exhausted. 
 
46 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 BoNALY, Saturday, 27th Aloni 1839. — We were in Court 
 at Perth all Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday last, the 
 23 d, 24th, and 25th, from morning to night. There were 
 forty-eight insignificant cases, thirty-five of them being 
 ordinary thefts. My due^ feet never failed to visit some 
 of the scenery of that beautiful place before breakfast, and 
 about midnight, particularly the North Inch, where the 
 fishermen dropping and drawing in their nets by moon- 
 light is always striking. I purchased two dozen of 
 curious roses (the roots, I mean) but could not get a 
 yellow carnation. 
 
 I heard here that my friend Eutherfurd was made Lord 
 Advocate, and Ivory, Solicitor, Eutherfurd's elevation is 
 an occurrence of the deepest importance to Scotland. I 
 have some misgiving about the validity of our proceedings 
 here, because the commission to the Depute- Advocate fell 
 by the fact that the previous Lord Advocate (John A. 
 Murray) had ceased to hold that office, and that no new 
 commission was produced to us. A new commission did 
 exist, because it was executed at Edinburgh just as we 
 began business. But it was not produced in Court, nor 
 was Cosmo Innes, who acted, sworn in under it, nor were 
 we applied to to appoint any one. Innes held himself 
 to be safe without the Court's interference, and nothing 
 was said by anybody. But I don't clearly see how a 
 person can act legally under a deputation said to exist, but 
 not exhibited, and not sworn to. 
 
 We came home yesterday forenoon. This has been a 
 merry and delightful Circuit. The weather has been, and 
 continues, ethereal. We have only had one shower since 
 we left Edinburgh, — at Aberdeen, — and it did not last 
 above two hours. 
 
 1 '•' But let my due feet never fail 
 
 To walk the studious cloisters pale. 
 
 — II Penseroso 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1839. 47 
 
 I am more and more charmed with Moncreiff, whom it is 
 impossible not to love and reverence. There never was 
 such a union of the sternness of duty with the softness of 
 affection, of force of intellect, in so far as legal reasoning 
 is concerned, with simplicity in all other matters. 
 
 Murray, it seems, has insisted on finishing off by being 
 made a Knight! ! ! It was he who once praised a sea- 
 captain to me, because when he was told that the Admir- 
 alty meant to knight him for some gallant action, he 
 said : " By the Lord ! they shall try me by a Court-martial 
 first !" It is incomprehensible. 
 
SOUTH CIECUIT. 
 
 Autumn 1839. 
 
 Ktrklands, by Jedburgh, IVednesdmj 11th September 
 1839. — I left Edinburgh for this South Circuit, on Satur- 
 day last, the 7th, with Mrs. Cockburn, my two daughters, 
 Jane and Elizabeth, and my youngest son, Frank. 
 
 We left Edinburgh at eight in a wet morning, and 
 breakfasted with the Tods, at their villa at Kirkhill, on 
 the Esk, a little above Dalhousie, a very nice spot. Mr. 
 Webster, distinguished in this country as the American 
 orator, with several of his family, went just before us all 
 this first stage, on their way to England, by Abbotsford. 
 I had dined with him the day before at Jeffrey's, — an 
 agreeable and sensible man. 
 
 Departing from Kirkhill about twelve, we proceeded 
 over Middleton Moor and down the Gala ; a valley 
 associated with my earliest recollections, and which, in a 
 sunny day, still appears to me to be singularly pleasing. 
 The old ale-house at Heriot was the first inn I ever 
 entered. My father, who, I think, was Convener of the 
 County, went out to attend some meeting of Road Trustees, 
 and he took a parcel of us with him. He rode, and we 
 had a chaise to ourselves, — happiness enough for boys. 
 But more was in store for us. For he remained at the 
 mansion-house of Middleton with his friend Mr. Hepburn, 
 and we went on about four miles further to Heriot House, 
 where we breakfasted and passed the day, fishing, bathing, 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT-AUTUMN 1839. 
 
 49 
 
 and rioting. It was my liist inn, and the first inn of 
 most of the party! What delight! A house to our- 
 selves,— on a moor,— a burn,— nobody to interfere with us, 
 —the power of ringing the bell as we chose,— a lass most 
 willing to answer and to obey,— the ordering of our own 
 dinner, blowing the peat fire, laughing as often and as 
 loud as we chose. What a day ! We rang the hand-bell 
 for the pure pleasure of ringing, and enjoyed our inde- 
 pendence by always going out and in by the window. 
 This dear little inn does not now exist; but its place is 
 marked by a square of ash-trees. It was a bright, beauti- 
 ful, August day. 
 
 We returned to the inn of Middleton, on our way 
 home, about seven in the evening; and there we saw 
 another scene which I have never forgotten. People 
 sometimes say that there is no probability in Scott's 
 making the party in Waverley retire from the Castle to 
 the Howf, but these people were not with me at the inn 
 at Middleton, about fifty years ago. The Duke of Buc- 
 cleuch was living at Dalkeith ; Henry Dundas, then Home 
 Secretary, at Melville ; Eobert Dundas, the Lord Advocate, 
 at Arniston ; Hepburn of Clerkington, at Middleton, and 
 several of the rest of the aristocracy of Midlothian within 
 a few miles off, all with their families and luxurious 
 houses. Yet had they all, to the number of twelve or 
 sixteen, or so, congregated in this wretched inn for a day 
 of freedom and jollity. We found them roaring, and sing- 
 ing, and laughing, in a low-roofed room scarcely large 
 enough to hold them, with wooden chairs and a sanded 
 floor. When their own lacqueys, who were carrying on 
 high life in the kitchen, did not choose to attend, the 
 masters were served by two women. There was plenty 
 wine, particularly claret, in rapid circulation, on the table ; 
 but my eye was chiefly attracted by a huge bowl of hot 
 
50 CIR CUITJO URNE YS. 
 
 whisky punch, the steam of which was ahiiost drop- 
 ping from the roof, while the odour was enough to per- 
 fume the whole parish. We were called in, and made to 
 partake, and were very kindly used, particularly by my 
 uncle Harry Dundas. How they did joke and laugh ! 
 with songs and toasts ! and disputation L and no want of 
 practical fun ! I don't remember anything they said, and 
 probably did not understand it. But the noise, and the 
 heat, and the uproarious mirth, I think I hear and feel • 
 yet. My father was in the chair, and having gone out 
 for a little, one of us boys (I forget who) was voted and 
 put into his place, and the boy's health was drunk, with 
 all the honours, as " The young Convener," hurrah ! 
 hurrah ! " may he be a better man than his father ! " 
 hurrah ! hurrah ! very good ! hurrah ! etc. I need not 
 mention that they were all in a state of elevation, though 
 there was nothing like absolute intoxication, so far as I 
 could judge. They were all happy and glorious, enjoying 
 their unchecked boose. Yet they were within a mile or 
 two of the best and the freest houses in the country, all 
 their own, but voluntarily preferred the licence of that 
 little nasty alehouse. 
 
 My next acquaintance with the Gala was about two 
 years after this, when my brother Robert and I were sent 
 to pass our six-weeks' vacation at Burnhouse, then belong- 
 ing to the same family (Thomson) that has it yet. The 
 Thomson who had it then was a bachelor, who had to 
 attend to his farm ; and so, except when he, who was a 
 first-rate fisher, could go with us to the water, which was 
 not very often, we were left entirely to the freedom of our 
 own wills, and each of us had not only a rod, but a rod 
 with a reel, and a basket, and a superfluity of lines and hooks: 
 nay more, — a 'pomj. Glorious six weeks ! The trouts, 
 the open hills, the greyhounds, the ponies, the idleness ! 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN i^T,^. 51 
 
 Ever since, I have loved the Gala. But I think I should 
 have loved its pastoral valley without this early attach- 
 ment. It is bleak and wet, no doubt, but so is most of 
 the pastoral scenery of Scotland, the whole of which 
 requires the attraction of a bright day. But with such 
 a day, the sparkling stream of the Gala, the range of its 
 wild, unenclosed hills, and its impressive solitude, to say 
 nothing of its coming in for a share of the historical 
 interest which belongs to the whole of our southern border, 
 give it charms which I always feel powerful. AVhen I 
 knew it first, Galashiels was a rural hamlet ; the house of 
 Torwoodlee stood bare and staring, and the high-road ran 
 on the west side of the valley. The old laird of Torwood- 
 lee survives to enjoy the reward of his having planted 
 judiciously, in seeing his now beautiful place nearly buried 
 in foliage. Galashiels has become the Glasgow of Selkirk- 
 shire. 
 
 The day brightened up about two, and we saw the rich 
 and interesting district from about Galashiels to Kirk- 
 lands, by Melrose, in all its beauty. Abbotsford, Melrose 
 Abbey, Dryburgh, the Tweed, and the distant border 
 summits, — these give its interest to this range. 
 
 We remained here (Kirklands) all Sunday the 8th, and 
 on Monday the 9th we went to Borthwickbrae, where we 
 stayed till to-day. We went along the right bank of the 
 Teviot, both going and coming. The weather not good ; 
 a struggle between the sun and the rain; a battle in 
 which, when it is fought in Scotland, Sol has seldom much 
 chance with Aquarius. But the air was mild, the woods 
 fresh, the fields green, and the drive beautiful. 
 
 If any change of our atmosphere should ever render 
 height advantageous, or immaterial, Borthwickbrae may 
 be an agreeable place. But at present seven or eight 
 hundred feet of elevation above the sea is inconsistent 
 
52 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 with Scotch comfort. A sloj^py clay soil, trees imbedded 
 in thick, wet, green fog, — fields of grass which look 
 bright at a distance, but in which, when gone upon, it is 
 seen that every hoof makes a well, and every w^ell is filled 
 with moss water, slimy out-houses, a general chill, a 
 heavy smell, these are the natural curses of such a height. 
 My niece, however, and all her family were very kind, and 
 the party agreeable. 
 
 I went to Branxholm, which I had not seen for a long 
 time. It was never much ; but a highway between it and 
 the Teviot, and its conversion into a modern house, have 
 now made it nothing. 
 
 I also, for the first time, made a pilgrimage to Ale- 
 moor Loch, — a small and bleak piece of insignificant 
 water, but interesting as the source of the Ale, which 
 rushes copiously out of it. My juridical eye rested (I 
 hope) with due respect on the high and sterile district 
 which has the honour of having given his title to my 
 predecessor, Lord Alemoor, whom I have always been accus- 
 tomed to reverence, though I don't know on what grounds, 
 as a respectable judge, classical and pompous, stupid and 
 well-bred. 
 
 KiRKLANDS, Tuesday, 11th September 1839. — Still here. 
 The weather since the 11th has been very rainy. Sunday 
 last was flood. Nevertheless thick shoes and a thick skin 
 make water a smaller evil than it is often thought. And 
 there are always gleams, the more prized from the con- 
 trast. 
 
 The Court was held and finished yesterday. Only about 
 half a dozen of insignificant cases. 
 
 I never see Jedburgh without pleasure. Its position, 
 its history, and its abbey, impress it with that peculiar 
 feeling of softness and of sacredness which pervades all 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1839. 58 
 
 our border scenery, but especially those j^arts of it which 
 are dignified by fragments of architectural antiquity. 
 
 It is a long time since I was there professionally, and 
 this was my first visit as a judge. I was much pleased to 
 see that the Crailing Guard had escaped being anyhow 
 modernised. A deliditful institution. The dotaoe of the 
 feudal system. 
 
 The shades of Eskgrove, and of Brougham, of Craig, and 
 of Scott, rose before me. Brougham's only professional 
 occupation for about two years after he joined the Faculty 
 of Advocates (in 1800), consisted in torturing Eskgrove, 
 the Justice-Clerk, a great lawyer, and a testy, avaricious, 
 ludicrous, and contemptible old man. His Lordship once 
 stopped the business, according to the prevailing custom 
 then, to dine, and after teasing his very soul out at table, 
 the Evil (Brougham's nickname) disappeared the instant 
 that his Lordship drank good afternoon, in order to 
 process back to Court. It was soon seen why the Evil 
 had taken himself off; for the procession had not advanced 
 half-way when a military-looking gentleman (being the 
 learned counsel), and a respectful servant, with a cockade 
 in his hat, dashed from the slope above the town, through 
 the middle of it, scattering the warriors of Crailing — 
 advocates, jurymen, trumpeters, and clerk, and then before 
 the splashed and dinner- shaken walkers could recover 
 from their agitation, or get well placed in Court, the 
 person, who a minute before had performed the part of a 
 captain in a hurry, w^as on the floor, gowned and wigged, 
 objecting to everything. The poor Justice was glad to 
 let the devil alone. His step had not been the steadier, 
 nor his temper the calmer, nor his fright the less, from his 
 refreshment, but glad to find his bones all safe, he evapo- 
 rated in his usual fierce, but insignificant wrath, at " that 
 most malapert young man, Maister Broom or Broug-ham." ^ 
 
 1 Journals, vol. i. 241. 
 
54 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS, 
 
 Craig was several years after this. The decorous block- 
 head was deserted on his first Circuit day by everybody 
 else ; but as he insisted on drawling on at Jedburgh for 
 three entire days, Scott as a Sheriff, Campbell of Craigie 
 as a counsel, and I as the Advocate-Depute, were compelled 
 to drawl on with him. But for Scott's vivacity, these 
 days must have proved fatal. His Lordship, still in terror 
 of the French Revolution, insisted on himself and us three 
 standing up gravely every day, while he toasted the king, 
 and the trumpeters played God save him. One night when 
 his heart was softened, and his eyes moistened by remini- 
 scence and hot brandy and water, he fell into the days of 
 his "Mirror" and "Lounger," and told us how he was once 
 driven from the paradise of Barskimming where he had 
 retreated for nature and romance, by looking out on a 
 deAvy morning and seeing the brute (as he called him) of a 
 butcher killing a calf on the lawn. " Would not you have 
 fled too, Mr. Sheriff Scott % " " No, my Lord, I would 
 have consoled myself by thinking of a good veal cutlet." 
 
 We leave this to-morrow for Beatock by Selkirk and 
 St. Mary's Loch. Murphy assures us it is to be a good 
 day, which that scenery well deserves. 
 
 Beatock, Thursday Morning, ISth September 1839. — But 
 Murphy was wrong, — We left Kirklands yesterday at half- 
 past eight A.M., and reached this at six in the evening. It was 
 an average day for that country, that is, very rainy, which, 
 however, seems to be universal this season, in the plains as 
 well as on the hills. But its truces let me walk up many 
 ascents, and there were even a few gleams of sunshine. 
 
 The first thing that attracted my notice was the statue 
 of Sir Walter Scott in Selkirk, which I never saw before. 
 A sad piece of sculpture, not very honourable to the gentr}^ 
 of Selkirkshire. There are two things good about it, how- 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1839. 55 
 
 ever, — the inscription, which quotes, very happily, his own 
 lines on his favourite Yarrow and Ettrick, and the pride 
 which the people of the town feel in the man, and in his 
 ^^gj. "Have ye seen our (oor) Sir Walter, mem?" 
 said a poor shop-keeper to Mrs. Cockburn, with a strong 
 appropriating emphasis on the pronoun. All the natives 
 seemed gratified whenever a stranger stopped to look at it. 
 
 The whole thirty-seven miles, from Selkirk to Beatock, 
 is beautiful, at least to a Scotch and pastoral eye. I had 
 been at the head of St. Mary's Loch once before, a few 
 years ago, when I passed a day and a night at a farm- 
 house of Henderland's, with Eichardson and Sir Charles 
 Bell, and their ladies. The rest of the way, from St. 
 Mary's to this was quite new to me. 
 
 The woodland part of the scenery, by Bowhill, Newark, 
 and Hangingshaw, is the part that pleases the majority of 
 spectators. But though very beautiful, yet composed, as 
 it is, of wood, river, and hill, not arranged with any 
 singularity, it is not more beautiful than thousands of 
 similar Scotch scenes. By far the best part of it owes its 
 charm to the old tower of Xewark. 
 
 It is when the trees begin to fail, when the hard-wood 
 keeps back, and lets the fir go on, and when, after ascend- 
 ing the Yarrow a little more, the very fir gives up to the 
 grass, and we are left to the solitude of the hills, that the 
 real peculiarity and interest of the range begins. It is as 
 purely pastoral a district as I have seen in Scotland, with 
 very green grass, unbroken by a single rock, few houses, 
 and no village, except little secluded Yarrow, the clear 
 river, the silent turf-edged loch, the old stories and ballads, 
 and the genius of Scott lingering in every valley, and 
 embellishing every feature and every tale. The bareness, 
 openness, and sameness of the valley might seem to pre- 
 clude its being interesting, but these are the very things 
 
56 CIR CUITJO URNE YS. 
 
 that aid the old associations, and impart that feeling of 
 pleasing melancholy which belongs to the region. There is 
 inspiration in the words Newark, Yarrow, and Dryhope.^ 
 
 There being, as yet, fortunately, no inn to pollute the 
 strath, the Selkirk horses took us to Meggat Bridge, 
 eighteen miles, and there a fresh pair met us from Beatock 
 and brought us here. 
 
 The lower part of the descent, near this, is not remark- 
 able. But the first drive down from the Loch of the Lowes 
 till Moffat Water begins to run with some profession of 
 horizontality, is glorious. It is as fine a ravine as we 
 have, of mere turf. In spite of the rain, Lizzie, Frank, 
 and I went up and saw the tail of the Grey Mare, which 
 was fully powdered and frizzled. 
 
 Cosmo Innes, our Advocate-Depute, stayed all Tuesday 
 night, in almost a bothy, at St. Mary's Loch, for the sake 
 of fishing. His hostess has two sons, and some other kins- 
 people, who emigrated a few years ago to Canada, where 
 she says they are all prospering in a Selkirkshire and 
 Dumfriesshire of their own naming. In describing their 
 felicity, she mentioned a circumstance which, to be sure, 
 must strike a St. Mary's Loch woman. " An', what d'ye 
 think ! in Yarrow kirk ye sometimes canna hear ae word 
 the minister says for the folk coughing. But ye may gang 
 to iluir kirk the hail year round without either hearing a 
 clocher or a hoast." . 
 
 Richardson, the most experienced of Scotch London 
 solicitors, tells me that this inn (Beatock) was built on 
 a public view by a tax, being almost the only job of the 
 kind that parliament has ever been cajoled to sanction. 
 They have their reward. The public was assessed about 
 £5000 to pay for buildings, and the establishment is abomin- 
 able. But Sawney is not an inn-keeping animal. Civility, 
 1 Journals, vol. i. 243. 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1839. 57 
 
 tidiness, and activity without bustle, are no parts of liis 
 nature. The landlord here is a living dunghill. 
 
 I have gone this morning to the top of a hill. A few 
 months dry weather every summer over the low ground, 
 leaving the hills to have their verdure brightened by the 
 showers, would make Moffat a very agreeable place ; as it 
 is, it is all splash, splash. 
 
 Thornhill, Sunday Forenoon, 2\st September 1839. — 
 We left Beatock on Thursday forenoon, amidst a torrent 
 of rain, which only stopped for a few minutes, out of 
 respect to the law, as we entered Dumfries in procession. 
 We were joined there in the evening by Meadowbank, 
 with two daughters and a son-in-law. The Court was 
 held next day, and the business was over by four ; after 
 which, the usual banquet closed the judicial labours of 
 Dumfries. 
 
 I had not been there for several years, and found two 
 or three changes. 
 
 The old windmill has been converted into what they 
 call an Observatory; which means a windmill-looking 
 tower, with a bit of shrubbery round it, ginger-beer 
 in the ground floor, a good telescope in the second story, 
 and a camera obscura in the third. So the astrono- 
 mical dignity of the establishment is not great, but still it 
 is an agreeable and civilised institution. The views of 
 the neighbouring country are beautiful, and there are few 
 better positions for a camera. 
 
 I never enter mad-houses, but the new Lunatic Asylum 
 is very striking outside, and stands on a fine site. While 
 asking a little boy on the road some questions about it, 
 he used a word, which it is to be hoped does not truly 
 indicate the character of the internal treatment. He 
 pointed out a man who was walking in a gallery, as " the 
 
58 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 Breaker r " AYliat do you call the Breaker?" "The 
 man that breaks the daft folk." A lad beside us also 
 used the term as one familiar. 
 
 An ill conceived and worse executed granite monument 
 has been erected to the memory of the Covenanting 
 martyrs, in the churchyard. In order that it might stand 
 on the very spot where some of them were buried, their 
 original tombstones have been lifted, and instead of being 
 replaced properly, are allowed to lie about anyhow, in 
 scarcely legible positions. Some of their inscriptions are 
 very good, breathing devotion and defiance. Those who, 
 like the Committee on Scott's monument at Edinburgh, 
 think that white marble may withstand the climate of 
 Scotland, should look at Turnerelli's horrid statue of 
 Burns in this churchyard. It has only been erected about 
 twenty-three years, and is covered in on the roof and on 
 three sides, yet it is completely spoiled. But this does 
 no injustice to the sculptor. 
 
 I have always liked Dumfries. It stands high in the 
 rank of our Scottish provincial towns, and owes much to 
 its river, but more, in my opinion, to its churchyard, 
 which contains several most interesting tombs, and the 
 ashes of many families famous in our Southern history. 
 
 And my decision is, that its windows are the cleanest 
 in Scotland. 
 
 We are going to pay some visits in Galloway ; but we 
 can't be received till to-morrow. So, being unwilling to 
 live two days in a wretched Dumfries inn, we left " The 
 Commercial Hotel " there, yesterday after breakfast, and 
 came here, to while two days away. 
 
 As soon as we arrived, we set off for Drumlanrig, which 
 I had passed before, but had never gone up to, and loitered 
 some hours in and about the house and the grounds. It 
 would be unjust to condemn any place utterly, which is 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1839. 59 
 
 in such a pitiable state of disrepair. But I doubt if any- 
 thing, even the restoration of the old wood, which has 
 been so barbarously destroyed within my own time, in 
 order that its produce might be wasted on foolish profligacy 
 in London, would make it a fine place. The incurable 
 defect is the paltriness of the natural features. No lake, 
 no sea, no rock, no mountains except some lumpish ones 
 too far off to belong to this place particularly, and not 
 even a river, for the Mth is so hidden and so distant that 
 practically it forms no part of the home scenery, at present 
 scarcely any good wood, and no ruin. The house, archi- 
 tecturally, is excellent, as might be expected from Inigo 
 Jones, who, I believe, designed it, and the terraces below 
 are on a greater scale than anything else of the kind in 
 Scotland. But they are not good, because, like every- 
 thing else about the place, they are obviously incomplete 
 and ill kept. To be right, they ought to have balustrades, 
 statues, and fountains, whereas at present they have not 
 even decent gravel. The inside of the house seems to 
 be in a mean taste, and it is said that the whole fabric is 
 dangerously frail. If this be the case, the best thing that 
 could be done would be to leave it as a ruin, to get a 
 noble design for a new castle from Playfair, to build it 
 more in visible connection with the river, to renew the 
 terraces in better style, to plant largely and judiciously, 
 and to do everything in anticipation of how the whole is to 
 look after these woods shall have sucked the nourishment 
 of a hundred summers. 
 
 I walked home, and saw the valley of the Nith lighted 
 up by a sweet and splendid autumn sunset. The day was 
 beautiful, and so is this day, I like the character of the 
 strath, lined by respectable (though not picturesque) hills, 
 the low grounds, and even some of the high, brightened 
 by agricultural cultivation, and darkened by masses of 
 
60 CIR CUITJO URNE YS. 
 
 straggling wood, and a beautiful stream playing itself 
 through the whole. The smoke of the village fires yester- 
 day — a Saturday evening — gave it the last charm of which 
 any scene admits. 
 
 I have been much pleased with the floral taste of the 
 people, whose gardens and windows abound with good 
 flowering shrubs. There are more fuchsias and geraniums 
 at the doors and in the windows of that beautifully-placed 
 Penpont, which I have just strolled through, than in all 
 the hamlets in Midlothian. 
 
 And this inn, which, though I should not suppose it 
 contained above half a dozen of rooms, is ludicrously called 
 " The Buccleuch and Queensberry Hotel," is the very best 
 little country inn it has ever yet been my good fortune 
 to fall in Avith in Scotland. In kindness, purity, quiet, 
 comfort, and good cheer, it would be a formidable rival to 
 any of its English sisters. Like most other perfectly well- 
 conducted small inns, it is managed entirely by women, 
 Mrs. Glendinning, a tidy and sensible matron, with a 
 lively eye and soft voice, being the Lady Abbess, who 
 bustles about actively, but very gently, amidst her nice 
 hedge alehouse nuns. 
 
 We mean to return to Dumfries to-night. 
 
 CuMPSTONE, near Kirkcudbright, Thursday, 2Uh Sep- 
 tember 1839. — We went to Dumfries last Sunday evening, 
 under the influence of a mild and bright moon, and left it 
 next day about eleven, and went round the coast by South- 
 wick to Dalbeattie, and from thence to Gelston Castle, 
 where we remained till Wednesday forenoon, the whole 
 distance being only about thirty-two miles. The early 
 part of the day was foggy, but after twelve it was calm, 
 warm, and sunny. 
 
 We stopped and did homage to New Abbey, which I 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT- AUl'UMN 1839. Gl 
 
 had not seen for above thirty years. It is a beautiful and 
 venerable fragment. It would be difficult to find any 
 building where the stone and the ivy combine more 
 harmoniously. But though as yet time has only blended 
 them beautifully into one composition, and breathed an 
 unbroken reverence over both, the further insinuation and 
 clustering of vegetable life ought to be repressed ; as it is, 
 it has covered quite enough. The chief value, however, 
 of this abbey, consists in its standing as a monument of 
 the brutality of Scotland in these matters. It is only 
 about twenty-five years ago that the whole pile was not 
 only sold, but was bought actually for the 'purpose of being 
 taken down and made into stone dykes ! And this purpose 
 was partly carried into eff'ect. No proprietor could have 
 made such a transaction in any country of right feeling, 
 nor in such a country could any person have dared to have 
 avowed such a design. The liberality (combined, I hope, 
 with the indignation) of six or eight gentlemen saved the 
 residue of the ruin by repurchasing it. It is theirs still, 
 but I grieve to say that another specimen of our unworthi- 
 ness to possess such relics is to be found in the disgraceful 
 state in which it is kept. It is a byre. Beasts ! 
 
 " The unlettered muse " seems never to have entered 
 the churchyard. There is not even an attempt at an in- 
 scription in it, beyond names and dates. The name and 
 the years are there, but no holy text around is strewed. 
 They have even removed (at least, I could not find it), the 
 stone which, when I was last there, contained the post- 
 humous defamation of first stating that a young lady was 
 an aff'ectionate sister, and a dutiful daughter, etc., and then 
 adding " and a chaste virgin^ 
 
 I had been told (but only by Galwegians) to expect 
 something uncommonly fine along this part of the shores of 
 the Sol way, and from this highway. I was disappointed. 
 
62 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 It is the sioupidest of all our Firths. Few rocks, no islands, 
 and especially no edging of picturesque mountains. For 
 to point, as the natives always do, to the dim ghosts of 
 some distant hills, of which only the outlines are visible, 
 and to explain, with an air of triumph, these are the 
 English mountains, is mere stuff. They are too far off to 
 be felt as parts of the real picture. They may serve the 
 part of remote distance, but not of foreground. 
 
 Southwick is too far from the sea, at least for a place 
 so near it; but still it has all the appearance of being 
 excellent. 
 
 We stayed at Gelston — ugliness itself — till yesterday 
 forenoon, that is, from the forenoon of Monday the 23d, 
 till the forenoon of Wednesday the 25 th, when we came 
 here (to Cumpston) eight miles further. 
 
 CuMPSTON, Friday, -nth September 1839, Night. — Went 
 up the Tarf yesterday, seeing and , visiting. On the way 
 home, I went with Edward Maitland over the eminence 
 called Tongueland Hill, from which there is a good view 
 of the Royal Burgh of Kirkcudbright and its waters, 
 and down to the Dee, at present a noble stream, with its 
 bridge, one of the largest, though certainly not one of the 
 handsomest, arches in Scotland. A bad day. 
 
 To-day we went and saw the Abbey of Dundrennan. 
 Though greatly abridged, it is still a beautiful and interest- 
 ing mass. But every other feeling is superseded by one's 
 horror and indignation at the state in which it is kept. 
 If it had been an odious and offensive building, which the 
 Crown and the adjoining landowners were trying to obli- 
 terate as fast as possible, and to render disgusting and 
 inaccessible in the meantime, what else could they do % 
 Five pounds worth of draining, £20 worth of clearing and 
 levelling, and £200 of masonry, would preserve it, in 
 
so UTH CIR CUir—A UTUMN 1 839. 63 
 
 decency, for centuries. But (though a little has been 
 done, and ill done) it is left a victim to every element, man 
 included, by which architecture can be effaced. Not a 
 trace of it will be discoverable in fifty years. Arches and 
 windows might be rescued by the labour of one man for 
 a single day ; but it is dealt with as if spite hated it. No 
 execration can do justice to the careless or selfish insensi- 
 bility that can obstinately persevere in the daily perpetra- 
 tion of such atrocity. My excellent and esteemed host, 
 in whose house I now am, and on whose ground this 
 abbey stands, is the chief delinquent. And the value 
 of the case is that he is a most liberal and right-minded 
 gentleman, because this shows that the mischief proceeds 
 from no positively improper object, but from that absence 
 of right feeling which, on such subjects, seems to be nearly 
 universal among Scotch proprietors. They gaze on the 
 glorious ruins of noble buildings, over which time and 
 history delight to linger, and which give their estates all 
 the dignity they possess, with exactly the same emotion 
 that the cattle do, to which these impressive edifices are 
 generally consigned. It is a humiliating, national scandal. 
 A rainy, rainy day. Where's the old rainbow % 
 
 CUMPSTON, Saturday, I'^ih September 1839, Night. — The 
 first half of this day had a famine-like appearance. Heavy, 
 stook-rotting rain. About twelve it cleared up, and we 
 had a rather splendid day for Cally. We passed some 
 hours there. I had seen it before, but not since the new 
 front has been added to the house, and the marble lobby 
 made, and the furniture put in. The place, with its wood, 
 its well-kept home ground, its varied surface, its distant, 
 bounding hills, and its obvious extensive idea of a great 
 and beautiful domain, is one of the finest in Scotland. As 
 to the house — granite and marble though it be — and 
 
64 CIRCUIT JOURNE YS. 
 
 though its portico be designed by Papworth and admired 
 by Playfair, I was disappointed. Solid, grave, and in 
 good proportion, it ought to please, and I fancy I am 
 wrong in not being sufficiently pleased. But for such a 
 place, and such a house, it is all too small. And accord- 
 ingly the chief defence of it, particularly of the portico, is 
 that it is of granite, a strong stone, and that there are no 
 larger granite columns in this country. Well, neither are 
 there larger gold or larger gingerbread pillars, but if, 
 whatever their substance be, they be not sufficiently large 
 to satiate the architectural appetite, the peculiarity or diffi- 
 culty of their material is nothing. Granite is admirable 
 for fortifications, bridges, or other works of eternity, where 
 durability is the only beauty. But for houses it is too 
 cold (I speak only of the grey), and its seams don't admit 
 of being well joined ; and though great reverence be due to 
 hardness, and to any size, however small, that for the 
 material, is unusually large, it won't do to give us a mansion 
 of great pretension, though perhaps the pretension were of 
 modesty, and then, when we object to its want of greatness, 
 to say, it is built of very hard and rare stone. 
 
 The marble lobby is new in Scotland, and beautiful. 
 But for a thing of the kind, it is too little and far too fine 
 for a mere common lobby. I advise whoever means to 
 lay out enough of money, to cover a lobby with pure 
 white marble, and to adorn it with beautiful busts, to put 
 it well into the inside of the edifice, and to use it for 
 sculpture, or music, or anything dignified, rather than as a 
 passage. 
 
 The factor told me that the whole marble of this lobby 
 was cut, and polished, and put up by a common workman 
 from Whitehaven. 
 
 I wish I had the two busts of Napoleon and Washington. 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1839. 65 
 
 CuMPSTON, Sunday Night, '2Qth September 1839. — A 
 beautiful day. I passed it in the temple not made with 
 hands. But I have nothing to record. The Dee, after 
 the late rains, was glorious ; not so much howev^er from 
 fulness, as from rugged, foaming whiteness. The pro- 
 spect from Tongueland Hill is beautiful and peculiar. 
 Kirkcudbright stands like a little Venice, iii the midst of 
 its surrounding waters. 
 
 TnoR^nTLL, Monday Night, 30//a September- 1839. — We 
 left Cumpston to-day about half-past ten, and got here, by 
 New Galloway, about half-past five. 
 
 The whole of these thirty-eight or forty miles were new 
 to me, and we had a perfect day for enjoying them. 
 
 Tlie space is all partly agricultural, and partly pastoral ; 
 that is, better than either separately ; though with a great 
 preponderance of the pastoral. With moor and mountain 
 enough to preserve the feeling of wildness, the prevailing 
 character of the range is that of advancing cultivation, 
 interrupted by many a tumbling stream, and broken by 
 innumerable hillocks, and streaks and masses of wood, 
 by which the whole surface of this half Highland country 
 is diversified. 
 
 A shepherd, with whom I had a crack, was much 
 offended at the slight put upon his river by my asking 
 him if it was the " Tarf " 1 "Tarf! deil a drap 0' Tarf's 
 in 't. That's the black water 0' Dee! the (nmcientesf 
 water in Scotland.'' 
 
 By far the most striking thing I 've seen of late was the 
 Loch and Castle of Kenmure. It is a very curious scene. 
 Whenever we hear of lakes in Scotland, we are apt to 
 think of Highland ones, and to be disappointed if we do 
 not find rocky promontories, and the water set in a deep 
 frame of mountains, and all the other circumstances of 
 
66 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 Celtic scenery. There is nothing of this in Kenmure, nor 
 in almost any of our southern lochs. Its hank is flat on 
 the one side, and not picturesque on the other, though 
 there be a hill, which however, with the exception of the 
 single peak (of Dennans), is lumpish, and from the surface 
 not lofty. But the cultivation on the lov/ ground gave 
 the loch an air of civilisation, and the water lay shining 
 throughout its whole extent, under a bright, soft sun ; 
 and everything was calm and silent, while at the upper 
 end the dark rebel tower frowned from its high mound, 
 over all this peaceful loveliness, as if still retaining the 
 scornful spirit which drove its owner to the ruin of his 
 house in 1715. We stopped and made a slight, unob- 
 trusive inspection of the restored Peer's eyrie. Everything 
 denotes poverty. Money laid out chiefly on repairs and 
 on planting, would make it a proud feudal keep, with a 
 worthy subjected domain. One of the best, because one 
 of the most barbarous, prospects of what is called the 
 castle, is from the bridge, about half a mile after leaving 
 New Galloway. There is only a streak of the loch visible 
 and very little wood, but the high, solitary, old building 
 is seen, backed by a bare moory mountain, and its vassal 
 village cowering at its feet, exactly as it was in the days 
 of the Stewarts. The Peer, now in his 90th year, 1 
 understand, is as much of the old school as his tower is. 
 
 Next to Kenmure, we were delighted with what a 
 geologist would call the Bamn of Minnyhive. 
 
 It's a wretched, half-dead village, which should either 
 be regenerated into a clean, nice, thriving country town, 
 or be altogether superseded by a great mansion. Because 
 its position, at the confluence of several pastoral valleys, 
 is extremely beautiful, and the district is distinguished 
 by everything pleasing in the half-natnral, and half-culti- 
 vated scenery of the Scottish strath. All the low grounds 
 
SOUTH CI RCUIT— AUTUMN 1S39. 67 
 
 and much of the hills, were gleaming with bright corn and 
 grass; a great deal of wood is tossed richly everywhere, 
 the surface is full of knolls, some of tliem very regular, 
 and plainly shaped by water; comfortable, embowered 
 houses are perched on heights ; the river sweeps in a full 
 flow of liquid crystal ; and there is a prevailing air of 
 industr}'. I walked, or rather lingered, here for above an 
 hour, and was never more charmed. To be sure, I saw it 
 all under the magic of the sweetest sunshine that ever 
 blessed the close of a calm autumnal day. But, with its 
 elements, that scene can never be but beautiful. We lost 
 the glow of the Happy Valley, as we got into the narrow 
 defile, but the wood and the stream joined us again about 
 two miles from Penpont, and as I looked back from the 
 bridge over the Nith, close by Thornhill, I saw a day in- 
 capable of being made better, ended by a magnificent, 
 gorgeous sunset, and did not bid the last day of September 
 adieu till " the gradual, dusky veil " had fallen over all 
 nature. 
 
 BoNALY, Tuesday Night, 1st October 1839.— We left 
 Thornhill to-day about nine, and were here before seven. 
 
 But how was the fine gold of yesterday dimmed ! We 
 were persecuted by a rainy fog, which destroyed the 
 magnificent Pass of Dalveen, and after following us here, 
 is now pattering, as if in spite, on the poor drenched Pent- 
 lands. We saw nothing, fairly, and our enjoyment con- 
 sisted in the prospect of getting under the cover of our 
 own tower. 
 
 My printed companions (but I have been very idle), 
 have been Goodman's History of his own times, too grave 
 for a chaise ; Grattan's Life of his father, the very worst 
 book that has ever yet been penned by man ; The Fair 
 Maid of Perth, read for the twentieth time and always 
 
68 CIR C UI T JO URNE } '9. 
 
 with Iresli pleasure, and some frivolities in the department 
 of the ladies. 
 
 Meadowbank took Ayr himself. In arranging this 
 Circuit, Moncreiff and I shed mutual tears at the necessity 
 
 spring 
 
WEST CIRCUIT. 
 
 Spring 1840. 
 
 BoNALY, nth May 1840. — But our reunion did not 
 take place, Moncreiff was married to the Justice (Boyle), 
 and I to Meadowbank. 
 
 I went to Stirling and Meadowbank to Inveraray, and 
 both of us to Glasgow. 
 
 It was not worth while taking any note of so short and 
 common journeys, and I only put down the dates and 
 places after returning home, in order to keep up the Log- 
 book. 
 
 I went with my daughter Jane and Rosa Macbean 
 to Stirling, visiting Linlithgow Palace by the way, on 
 Monday the 27th of April. Before dinner that day, I 
 went and visited Lord Abercromby at Airthrie. He had 
 been very ill, but was then better, and his place was in 
 the perfection of young vernal beauty. It has been the 
 finest spring ever vouchsafed to Scotland. There are few 
 Julys like this April. And the verdure of Abercromby's 
 grass, the bright, fresh, tenderness of his foliage, the clear- 
 ness of his lake, the mirth of his lambs and water-fowl, 
 and the softened richness of his rocks and hills were all 
 blended into a scene of singular loveliness. 
 
 I was in Court the whole of the three next days, the 
 28th, 29th, and 30th. There was nothing particular 
 in any of the cases, except that in one of them we had 
 an excellent specimen of that beautiful option. Four 
 
70 CTR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 people were under trial for theft, and two for reset. A 
 villain, wlio would have cut the throats of all his re- 
 lations for a shilling, was called as a witness by the 
 prosecutor. It was objected that, being the son of one 
 of the thieves, he was not bound to give evidence. The 
 prosecutor (Cosmo Innes) endeavoured to make the objec- 
 tion inapplicable by saying that he only called him against 
 the tivo resetters. But the reply, that still his parent was 
 one of the accused, and that he was in the same position 
 with a wife called to testify in a case where her husband 
 was one of the accused, is at present deemed sound by the 
 Court. So I was obliged to disgrace the law by explaining 
 to him the respect paid to his sensibilities, and that in 
 order to spare his filial piety, he had the option of defeat- 
 ing justice by telling the truth or not, just as he chose. 
 No censure of this modern piece of judge-made legal 
 nonsense could be severer than the grotesque and villainous 
 leer with which he said : " Odd ! a' like that hoption, ma 
 Lord!" on which he retired amidst the laughter of the 
 prisoners, and the amazement of the jury, and saved the 
 tw^o resetters. 
 
 The Lord Advocate (Kutherfnrd) and I made out a Bill 
 lately, which has just passed the Commons, for preventing 
 the repetition of such disgraceful scenes by abolishing the 
 objection of relationship. But its passage through the 
 Peers is by no means certain ; for a majority of the 
 Faculty of Advocates is actually opposing it. They call 
 such a blackguard's declining to speak, "the voice of nature,^' 
 and profess to be moved by the 7netus 2)erjurii. The 
 opponents always take the case in which nothing worse 
 can happen than that a guilty man escapes. But under 
 this rule an innocent one may be convicted. Take this 
 case. A is on his trial along with B for a murder, which 
 B alone committed. He calls B's son. who saw his father 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— SPRING 1840. 71 
 
 alone do it. In this case the life of the innocent person 
 is sacrificed to what, at the very best, is the filial injustice 
 of the guilty one's relation. 
 
 When at Stirling, I heard of the death of Mrs. Cock- 
 hurn's brother, William ^lacdowall of Barr, an event not 
 anticipated, and which clouded all the rest of the Circuit, 
 and will long cloud the recollections of all who knew him. 
 We came to Edinburgh during the night of the 30th of 
 April, as 1 had to attend an Estate Bill, and then to go to 
 Barr next day. We reached Edinburgh at four in the 
 morning, through a dull, but most refreshing, fog, left it 
 at two next forenoon, and reached Barr that night about 
 ten. The funeral was next day. I remained there with 
 Mrs. Cockburn and I\Irs. Maitland till the morning of 
 Tuesday the 5th of May, when I went to Glasgow, which 
 I reached in time for a public breakfast, and was in Court 
 by ten that day. 
 
 We had five days of work, from nine in the morning 
 till six or seven in the evening, having been liberated, 
 however, on Saturday the 9th in time to reach home that 
 night. 
 
 There was nothing particular in the cases, the great 
 mass of them being aggravated thefts, followed by seven 
 years' transportation, ad nauseam. There was one capital 
 conviction, for murder. But even this was commonplace ; 
 the common Scotch case of a brute, excited by his own 
 liquor, and pretending to be provoked by that of his wife, 
 and finding himself alone in his own house with his help- 
 less victim, proceeding to beat her to death. This man 
 seemed to think it a sort of defence that it was a Satur- 
 day night, when " he was always ivorst, it being his pay- 
 day." His wife was perfectly sober, and though " she 
 could take a di-am," was not of dissipated habits generally, 
 and was never known to show any violence towards her 
 
72 C/R C Uir JO URNE YS. 
 
 husband. Yet though the proof could not have been 
 clearer if the jury had seen him murder her, they unani- 
 mously recommended him to mercy on the ground of 
 provocation, of which there was not a tittle, either in 
 evidence or in truth. Such is the modern aversion to 
 capital punishment. His name was Thomas Templeton. 
 
 There was also a shocking case of a poor child, scarcely 
 eight years old, a climbing boy, who was compelled by 
 threats to go up, or down, thirty-eight new chimneys 
 successively, and without any interval for rest or food, 
 though he was quite exhausted, cold, Avet, and excoriated, 
 and imploring that he might not be sent down the thirty- 
 eighth vent, in which he died. The labour and danger 
 were greatly increased by the vents being new, and the 
 object being to clear them, by a chisel, of the lime and 
 rubbish that adhered to their sides, a task requiring time 
 and strength, and the rubbish greatly obstructing the 
 passage at every turn. It was only charged as a culpable 
 homicide, and the master had rather an affection for the 
 boy, and worked him to death from no anger or selfish- 
 ness, but merely from the general brutality of his craft. 
 We longed to transport him, and will be abused by the 
 benevolent for not doing so ; but, in the circumstances, we 
 could not go beyond imprisonment. 
 
 Our public breakfast was a substitute for the public 
 dinner, and has been tried twice at Glasgow with success. 
 It does not supersede one or two small, rational, dinners, 
 of eight or twelve friends, or respectable connections of 
 the Court, but only the abominable gathering of all the 
 monsters who, as a matter of right, have long been per- 
 mitted to scandalise Scotch Circuits. Though often sorely 
 grudged, the old judges deemed these festivals indispens- 
 able to the dignity of the law. They were deemed 
 essential for the preservation of Church and State. But, 
 
WEST CIRCUIT—SPRING 1840. 73 
 
 for some years past, much business, the want of the judges, 
 picking the jurors, the cessation of the attendance of the 
 gentry, and the weakness of the modern stomach, have 
 introduced a distaste among most of us for these judicial 
 and stately feasts. There are only two of us who now 
 don't loathe them ; Moncreiff, who enjoys the refreshment 
 of meat and drink, and the Justice (Boyle) who, besides 
 the conviviality, still deludes himself with the notion that 
 the Circuit dinner exhibits him and the law in an impos- 
 ing attitude. These two delight to sit down at two in 
 the morning to salmon and roast-beef, though they have 
 to return to Court at nine, and to do Provosts the honour of 
 taking bumpers of claret or mulled port with them ; every 
 shut eyelid in the house starting open at the sound of the 
 glorious trumpets, as they drink the royal health. When 
 these two shall be gone, there will not be a judge of such 
 bad taste as to endure these horrid and mirthless meet- 
 ings. But how Hermand would have despised this. With 
 him the jollity of the Circuit was the onhf thing respect- 
 able about it. Nothing made it contemptible, even 
 judicially, except sobriety. I once heard the servant of 
 his serene colleague Pitmilly, m4io had a strong taste for 
 decorum and law, and none whatever for laughter or 
 liquor, tell the chambermaid at Perth to bring his master 
 a large kettle of warm water. Hermand, who was passing 
 to his dinner at midnight, said, " God bless me, sir, is he 
 going to make a lohoh kettle of punch, — and before supper 
 too ! " " No, no, my Lord, he 's going to his bed, but he 
 wants to bathe his feet first!" "Feet, sir]" exclaimed 
 Hermand, "what ails his feet? Tell him to put some 
 rum among it, and to give it all to his stomach ! " 
 
 My book on this Circuit was Romilly's Memoirs of his 
 own life, just published. The first part, being the account 
 of his youth, is excellent. The Parliamentary Diary recalls 
 
74 ClRCUrj'JO URNE YS. 
 
 many interesting discussions, and discloses many valuable 
 views, particularly those of Romilly himself, but on the 
 whole, it is not so striking as I thought that a record of the 
 parliamentary life of such a man would have been. It is 
 difficult to understand how he could record his impressions 
 and proceedings at the time, and yet keep so entirely clear 
 of the characters, conduct, manners, or curious doings or 
 sayings, of his associates or opponents. The charm of the 
 whole book consists in its development of the character 
 of the author, whose high, severe purity is softened, in 
 these pages, into greater amiableness than appeared in 
 the original in real life. There never was a better man. 
 He had a capital head, and a capital heart, for criminal 
 justice. His proposal that the Court should be entitled 
 to award costs to the unjustly accused against the pro- 
 secutor, is wise and humane, and perhaps original among 
 moderate and practical reformers. Why should the public 
 be permitted to charge an innocent man with a crime, and 
 though he be acquitted, to ruin him by costs, wlien it is 
 not allowed to bring a civil action against him unjustly, 
 with the same consequence % Such a law would soon 
 introduce public prosecutors into England, by the necessity 
 it would create of greater caution of prosecution and pre- 
 paration. In Scotland it would probably not burden the 
 public with £50 a year. 
 
WEST CIRCUIT. 
 
 Autumn 1840. 
 
 Dalmally. Sidiirdatj Xlglit, '29th August 1840. — lam 
 here on this Western Circuit, Meadowbank going to Stir- 
 ling, and I to Inveraray, and both to Glasgow. 
 
 I left Edinburgh on the morning of the 26th, with 
 Mrs. Cockbnrn, Jane, Elizabeth, and Frank, and went that 
 day by Stirling and Ardoch, to my nephew's, Sir David 
 Dundas, at Dunira, four miles west of Comrie. We stayed 
 there all the 27th and 28th, and left it this morning, 
 and got here about seven in the evening. 
 
 As yet we have had delicious weather, and have enjoyed 
 it. Nothing except what good weather reveals, in the 
 finer scenery of Scotland, has occurred worthy of being 
 mentioned, though our two days at Dunira were merry 
 and kind. 
 
 Strathearn, meaning the strath of about twenty miles 
 from Crieff to Lochearn Head, though by no means the 
 grandest, is, I suspect, perhaps the most picturesquely 
 beautiful district in Scotland. The rapid and steep 
 descent upon it from Ardoch, especially when it is lighted 
 up by the glow of a summer evening, is very striking, not 
 nearly so Swiss-like as the descent on the opposite side of 
 the valley, from Amulree, but still surprising and beautiful. 
 We snuffed the Comrie peat, and hailed the singularly 
 lucid water of Earn, and soon found lowly Dunira sleep- 
 ing calmly, as usual, in its magnificent cradle of crags 
 
76 CIK C UI T JO I 'A'NE VS. 
 
 and woods. The two next days were entirely given to 
 explore that delightful strath, which though I had 
 formerly been in it for days together, never appeared so 
 fresh and clean. I exclude Drummond Castle, for it is on 
 the flat, but what have we in this country more perfect, 
 in mixed cultivation and rocky wildness, than Ochter- 
 tyre, Lawers, Dunira, and Strowan 1 though its preponder- 
 ance of mere agriculture, perhaps, would justify the ex- 
 clusion of the last from the society of such glorious places. 
 And then how their interstices are filled up by the tufts 
 of Clathick, Comrie House, Dalchonzie, and Aberuchill ! 
 The eye and the mind wander incessantly from the rich, 
 low, flat, gravelly, alluvial holms, bright with verdure and 
 grain, though perpetually darkened with knolls of wood 
 and rock, to the lofty sierras of black and grey crags, 
 their bases all covered profusely with good wood, till the 
 solid masses are broken and dissipated as they get 
 higher, till at last they die away as the height still in- 
 creases, into streaks up the sheltered ravines, till vegetation 
 ceases, save where one or two successful adventurers may 
 be seen far beyond all companionship, defying the storm, 
 braving it, like the strong men of the world, and calling 
 on their timorous associates to come up to them. I never 
 tire of getting on the summit of one of the Strathearn 
 crags, and sitting and surveying the scene below, obviously 
 once a lake, and still the best preparation for a new lake 
 in the world.^ 
 
 The whole drive from Dunira to this was glorious. 
 The day calm, balmy, and bright, and everything, from 
 the rich placidity of Lochearn, to the alpine grandeur of 
 Dalmally, seen in the most favourable circumstances. It 
 is about thirty-one years since I was in these regions. 
 What a district it is ! Lying along the bases of Ben 
 Voirlich, Ben More, and in the company of Ben Cruachan 
 
 ^ Journals, vol. i. 260. 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1840. 77 
 
 and Ben Lawers, four of the greatest mountains in Scot- 
 land, Their summits were all played with by the sun and 
 the clouds all day. How the shadows swept over them ! 
 Amidst the milkiness of such an air, and the gorgeousness 
 of such lights, nothing is wanted to entitle Scotland to 
 stand up whenever even Switzerland is named. The 
 approach to Dalmally, where the valley opens out, as if 
 to give fair play to the amphitheatre of mountains, and 
 the solitary cliurch marks the presence of men, forms 
 one of the noblest prospects I have almost ever seen. 
 And the hills ! They have driven Aviemore out of my 
 head.i 
 
 Oban, Sunday, SOth August 1840. — We left Dalmally 
 this morning before eleven. The day still incapable of 
 improvement. The superiority of the Cairngorms is in 
 their ridginess. The Dalmally mountains are more earthly 
 and lumpish. But what lumps 1 And how well placed 1 
 Oh for old oaks, a huge old castle, and a feudal history, 
 about the centre of that amphitheatre I 
 
 The country from Dalmally to this was new to me, and 
 it is now gratifying to an aged gentleman to have the 
 omissions of his youth rewarded by being able to say that 
 so is the journey from this to Lochgilphead, and from 
 Lochgilphead to Inveraray. 
 
 The upper, that is the Dalmally, end of Loch Awe, 
 dignified by the ruins of Kilchurn Castle, and bounded by 
 the steep and stony Ben Cruachan, with its wooded base 
 and the magnificent corries that flank its northern bank, 
 is all very fine ; the southern hills, near the lake, are low, 
 but this implies shallowness of water, which gives islands, 
 with which accordingly this part of the loch is more richly 
 supplied than most of our Highland waters. 
 
 No river has a more striking outlet than the Awe, with 
 1 Journals, vol. i. 267. 
 
78 CIR C Ul T JO URNE YS. 
 
 its sides roaring with cataracts, and so steep that, though 
 sheep were browsing on their oases of verdure, it defied 
 us to find out how they had got there, or were ever to 
 get away. The river makes a short but violent rush to 
 Loch Etive, amidst a profusion of mountain, wood, and 
 many well-placed cliffs, till Muckairn Kirk, from which 
 the surface recedes on both sides, tells us we have gained 
 the summit, and must now descend to the sea. 
 
 Lest Ben Cruachan, whose summit was glittering to-day 
 as well as all the other sublimities of the district, should 
 not be sufficient for the honour of Muckairn, the heritors or 
 somebody have erected a thing in the churchyard, about 
 the size of a large broomstick, and not more attractive in 
 its form. I asked the driver what it was. " It 's a moni- 
 ment to a gentleman." " What gentleman 1" " Ou, a 
 dinna mind his name. He dee'd a while ago. Ou ay. 
 A mind noo. It's to Lord Ne-e-elson." 
 
 The descent from this summit to Loch Etive is all very 
 fine. The very rapid ebbing of the water towards low tide 
 as we saw it, suggests the notion of an American river ; 
 the dun hills remind one who has never been among them, 
 and knows them only from opinion, of something more 
 poetical ; and the appearance of little, comfortable Oban, 
 with the feudal fragment of Dunolly, makes the traveller, 
 even of two days, feel as if he had reached a haven of 
 repose after a long and perilous voyage. 
 
 This is the gem of sea villages. A small bay locked in 
 by hills ; five little vessels sleeping on the quiet water ; a 
 crescent of white houses almost touching the sea, backed 
 by a corresponding curve of cliff; the old tower of Dunolly 
 at the end of the one horn, and high knolls at the end of 
 the other; no manufactures, no trade, and scarcely any 
 bustle, several strangers attracted by mere beauty and 
 tranquillity ; all this completes one's idea, or rather one's 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN \%^o. 79 
 
 feeling, of a peaceful summer sea retreat. How gloriously 
 the sun set behind the hills of Mull ! and with what deep 
 and ineffable peacefulness has the night gradually, and as 
 if reluctantly, closed over the silver waters. 
 
 I half tremble to think that to-morrow is destined for 
 the Sound of Mull in a steamer, in order to see lona and 
 Staffa, by me for the first time. Hitherto my stomach has 
 only been for the solid earth, and I am shabby enough to 
 half wish for the apology of a storm. 
 
 Lochgilphead, Tuesday Night, 1st September 1840. — 
 Well ! I have actually had my piety warmed by musing 
 over the ruins of lona, and my faith in Ossian excited by 
 being in Fingal's Cave. 
 
 Francis, Elizabeth, and I left Oban yesterday morning 
 in the Brenda, a rumbling steamer, at six o'clock, and 
 were relanded there, after a prosperous voyage round the 
 Island of Mull, at eight in the evening, going by the 
 south end and returning by the Sound. Consequently 
 we not only saw lona and Staffa, but about 120 miles of 
 islands, and nature never produced a better day. 
 
 I saw little after the tenth or twelfth mile till I reached 
 lona, for my very unmaritime stomach was rebellious, 
 and for about four hours I lay abusing my folly, and vow- 
 ing that this should be my last voyage. In this state I 
 was landed on that island, but my infirmity instantly 
 ceased, and, getting into water like glass, it never came 
 over me again during the day. 
 
 The ruins greatly surpassed my expectation. I thought 
 that all I was to see was the mere stools of buildings, 
 whereas I found as many legible old inscriptions, carved 
 tombstones, and standing walls, as in most very ancient, 
 fallen edifices. Being walked round by the Captain, and 
 only an hour allowed, and a whole cargo of travellers to 
 
80 CIRCUIT JO URNE \ 'S. 
 
 be satiated, it was not a visit that could do more tlian leave 
 a general idea of the appearance of the place, and enable 
 one to know hereafter what people are speaking about 
 when they speak of lona. Were it not absurd, after all 
 that has been said and written, it would be irresistible for 
 any one of ordinary sense or feeling to indulge in the 
 visions which this remote and deserted little island is so 
 well fitted to inspire. They came across me, and the 
 recollection of the scene will now for ever suggest them 
 more easily and vividly. 
 
 I must confess that my contemplations of the past were 
 greatly marred by the reality of the present. A more 
 wretched set of creatures than those that crawled around 
 us I doubt if even Ireland could exhibit. Certainly no 
 other part of the world that I have ever read of could 
 exceed it. It might have been accounted for by suppos- 
 ing that Argyleshire had sent its most humiliating desti- 
 tution to affect the visitors of lona, had it not been for 
 the sad truth, that the naked and diseased dirt which 
 o;reets and follows the tourist there, will meet and follow 
 him in many other islands of the Hebrides. My sensi- 
 bility has perhaps been too little blunted by the past 
 reality of such spectacles, for I doubt if I was ever on one 
 of the western islands before, but it is dreadful to think 
 that these poor creatures are not only human, but country- 
 men. Yet they have an infants' school, which I saw in 
 action, and a church where the Sacrament was dispensed 
 the day before. So easy is it to combine the forms of 
 religion and education with the degradation of human 
 habits, if not the prostration of the human character. 
 They are the l)etter of the church and the school, but still 
 are about as brutish in the economy of life as their very 
 nasty cows and swine are. 
 
 But what can be expected, though they had all the 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1840. 81 
 
 churches and schools in Christendom, of people who live 
 in the constant view of these still more brutally kept 
 monuments and temples. What a disgrace to theii" 
 owners ! who I understand are the Argyles. All the 
 waters of Loch Fyne will not cleanse them from the shame 
 of these neglected solemn ruins. They are the most in- 
 teresting relics in the British Empire, and might, by mere 
 attention, and with very little expenditure, have been pro- 
 tected for centuries ; the flat, carved tombstones might 
 have had their venerable letters saved from being worn 
 out by regardless feet ; and the grass might have been kept 
 as smooth and pure as the turf at any of the Oxford 
 colleges ; but no foul beast ever trod a pearl in the dirt so 
 unconsciously as these titled men have, for many ages, but 
 particularly during the last hundred years, deliberately 
 allowed fragments, that have been the wonder of thinking 
 men, to be reduced to a worse condition than most pig- 
 styes. If proprietors who behave so had all the apology 
 of bankruptcy, this might be a consolation, for a well-dis- 
 posed mind could not fail to consider this as God's punish- 
 ment for their crime. But every one of them wastes 
 yearly, on contemptible importance, what would be quite 
 sufficient to transmit these sacred gifts of a former age to 
 succeeding ones, and in such a condition that they might 
 be admired, as they descend, without having the venera- 
 tion they inspire marred by unnecessary disgust. Even 
 the Argyle is diminished in my sight. 
 
 We landed easily on Staflfa, and I was one of four 
 who went to the very innermost recess of the cave. It is 
 one of the very few much-spoken-of wonders to which my 
 fancy had not come up. And I cannot say that my ex- 
 pectation had been lowered by the opinion of Serjeant 
 Talfourd, who told me, two years ago, that he thought, 
 Staifa " contemptible,'' a crotchet to be ascribed, no doubt 
 
 F 
 
82 CIK C U! T JO URNE VS. 
 
 to tlie poet's stonuicli not having come to its senses so soon 
 as mine had. It is one of nature's great geological feats. 
 No thunder is more awful than the roar of the wave as it 
 breaks along the sides, and on the inner end of the cavern. 
 And then there is nothing human about it. It is all pure 
 nature. Not a single ass has even painted his name upon 
 it. The solitude and storminess of its position greatly 
 enhance its interest. 
 
 On the whole, I have rarely been more gratified than 
 by at last beholding these two sights, one the wonder of 
 nature, the other of man. I had been anxious to see them 
 almost all my life, and the recollection will now be more 
 exciting than the fancy of them was. 
 
 The rest of the sail was delightful. We moved over a 
 sea nearly of glass, past places, but particularly past islands 
 and points, and things called castles, the names of which 
 were familiar, and where the mere surprise of seeing what 
 one had so often heard of was a pleasure. In their present 
 state there is very little beauty in any one place along that 
 coast, and not a single old building of any architectural 
 interest. The great want is of wood, even of larch, which, 
 however, for scenery, is rarely wood. Nor is it true that 
 wood would not grow on these tempest-beaten and foam- 
 dashed spots. A thousand small and exposed, but still 
 oak-clad, islands, and promontories, and bays, and knolls, 
 and ravines, but especially islands which are most in the 
 way of the spray and the wind, attest that, even though not 
 planted in great masses, the whole of the Hebrides might 
 be adorned and warmed by trees. It is sheep and poverty, 
 not the ocean or the storm, that keep them hard and uni- 
 form. What an Archipelago it would be had it only due 
 summer ! 
 
 As it is, the charm of the region consists in the pictur- 
 esque grouping of the features of the scenery, particularly 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1840. 83 
 
 of the hills, in the barbarous history, and above all, in 
 the desolation that seems to prevail over everything. We 
 did not see two dozen of vessels, including boats, through- 
 out the whole day, no town, or even village, except Tober- 
 mory, very few, and very insignificant houses, and no 
 people ; we heard no sounds except the oars of the few 
 boats that came alongside for passengers ; everything was 
 silent, hard, and still, under the impressiveness of which 
 one sails along, amidst scenes which time has been incapable 
 of changing, and which seem as if they had been preserved 
 merely that they might be the localities of old stories. 
 
 The two finest prospects are, a little after leaving Aros, 
 when the whole of Ben Cruachan, and a little after leav- 
 ing Ardtornish, when the Appin mountains stand before us, 
 both as we saw them, blazing with the setting sun, and 
 contrasted with the shaded, and almost black groups 
 behind us. 
 
 I suspect that had I seen Tobermory first, I should 
 have said of it all I have said of Oban, which it is very 
 like. Tobermory has the advantages of a steeper im- 
 mediate background, fringed with scattered wood ; of a 
 high and a low town, the one on the summit of the cliff 
 seeming to stand on the top of the houses on the beach 
 and of a church with a sort of a spire peering out from 
 among the trees amidst the upper buildings. Our twenty- 
 five passengers, or so, were mostly English, and all of 
 them were struck with its exact resemblance to Torquay 
 in its primitive condition 
 
 The number of foreign, but chiefly of English, travellers 
 is extraordinary. They fill every conveyance, and every 
 inn, attracted by scenery, curiosity, superfluous time and 
 wealth, and the fascination of Scott, while, attracted by 
 grouse, the mansion-houses of half of our poor devils of 
 Highland lairds are occupied by rich and titled Southrons. 
 
84 CIR C Ul r JO UKNE YS. 
 
 Even the students of Oxtbrd and Cambridge come to the 
 remote villages of Scotland in autumn to skid.y ! I found 
 ten of them three years ago, with two tutors, in lodgings at 
 Callander ; and a party, also with the tutor and the Greek 
 books, at Inveraray last time I was there ; and I found both 
 English and Irish youths established now at Oban. The 
 quantity of Greek imbibed, even by the dominie, I can 
 only conjecture, but they can do nothing better for their 
 minds or bodies than breathe such air, in such scenes. 
 
 Yesterday morning I went and saw Dunstaffnage. It 
 would be difficult to fancy a more glorious position for a 
 great castle, old or new. Indignation is never satiated 
 with abusing the unworthy owners of such shamefully 
 neglected ruins, nor imagination with arranging and im- 
 proving the materials of the scenery, recalling the former 
 condition of such jjlaces, or reviewing them for modern 
 life. I was very anxious to steal a curious round thin 
 flat stone, of about a foot in diameter, with a hole in its 
 centre (part of a quern, probably), and ventured to ask a 
 sort of a fool of a lad, who was attending me, if I might 
 take it, but he completely disarmed me by fidgeting, and 
 clawing, and drawling out, with a look of pain, " Ou ay — 
 I dinna ken — hut iVs been a lang while here,^' putting a most 
 appealing emphasis on the lang, which he spun out to five 
 times its ordinary length. ''It's been here a la-a-a-ng 
 time," plainly implying the question — " And wad she tak 
 it awaf So there it lies for me. There is a tender 
 epitaph in the burying-ground by a swain, over the remains 
 of "my modest love, snatched from me by death." But it 
 turns out that in spite of all her modesty, the lamentation 
 proceeds from her sj^ouse and numerous offspring. 
 
 We left Oban to-day at eleven, and got here at eight. 
 Another perfect day. 
 
 There is little to be seen between Kilmartin and this. 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1840. 85 
 
 — eight miles — but all the rest of the road, from Oban to 
 Kilmartin, about thirty-two miles, is most admirable — 
 most admirable indeed. A great deal of it quite inland, 
 consisting of deep valleys, profusely enriched by wood 
 (real wood, not filthy mercantile larch) and water ; but 
 then we met, every few miles, with our friends the arms 
 of the sea again, and as our way lay mostly across the 
 upper bays of their most inland touchings of the country, 
 and was consequently far from the storm, the whole of 
 these delightful little seas were surrounded by wood, and 
 sprinkled by knolly islands. Loch Melfort is beautiiul, 
 and has the advantage of having sometimes defied engin- 
 eering to make a road along its precipitous approaches. 
 
 I found a lad carving a monument from a design of his 
 own, in Kilmartin churchyard, whom I mention because 
 I should not wonder if he should hereafter be distinguished 
 as an artist. He told me his name was Mossman. His 
 conversation, and that design, a blasted tree, standing 
 over a broken column, gave me the impression of his 
 being an able young man. 
 
 There are a great many old, and curiously carved, flat 
 tombstones in this churchyard, generally without inscrip- 
 tions, but probably identified to the families by the carved 
 devices. There is also the remains of a cross, which had 
 been in the form of a human figure, on a cross, with out- 
 stretched arms. Though it be nearly covered with dirt 
 and nettles, and the arms be broken off above each elbow, 
 enough remains to evince considerable taste and skill in 
 the artist. It was Mossman who pointed it out to me. 
 There is also a very respectable and hoary monument, 
 built into a wall, to the memory of the last Catholic 
 minister of the parish. 
 
 Strachur, /S'wwf^, Uh Septemher 1840. — We left Loch- 
 
86 CIR C UI T JO URNE YS. 
 
 gilphead, and went to Minard, on the forenoon of last 
 Wednesday the 2d, under a deluge of rain which was 
 thought great even in Argyleshire, and endured the 
 whole day. 
 
 We remained at Minard till Friday morning. The 
 place had struck me so forcibly two years ago that I 
 visited it now chiefly that I might be better acquainted 
 with its beauties, especially as I had seen it advertised 
 for sale '-as the most beautiful Highland residence in 
 Scotland." I was disappointed, chiefly — (which applies 
 to nearly the whole western side of Loch Fyne), — because 
 the opposite side is so heavy and uninteresting. The 
 eastern is clearly the side to look from. The hills, too, 
 which had seemed, and still seem, so picturesque from 
 where I now am, were lost at Minard itself. That place, 
 however, projects so far into the sea that it is distinguished 
 l>y the rare peculiarity of having no road between it and 
 the water. I saw many proofs there, as I have elsewhere, 
 of the favourableness of these regions for vegetation. 
 Besides gorgeous fuchsias and very considerable passion- 
 flowers, a myrtle has sustained itself healthily for many 
 years, though uncovered and on an unheated wall. But 
 much of Argyleshire is south of Edinburgh, on a gravelly 
 soil, and on the level of the sea. 
 
 I made acquaintance, for the first time, with Castle 
 Lachlan, opposite Minard, with nothing castellated in 
 its modern style, but a remarkably sensible small house, 
 standing in a sheltered valley, with a beautiful prospect of 
 the sea, which turns the waves of its little inland bay at 
 its feet, excellent interspersed turf and shrubbery, and 
 altogether a comfortable place, in judicious taste, and 
 without any of the nearly universal symptoms of the idiot 
 of a laird having built, or improved, or idled himself out 
 of his e.state. 
 
II EST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1840. 87 
 
 After an agreeable visit to a kind and cheerful family 
 of ladies, we left Minard early on Friday, and held the 
 Court that day at Inveraray. A very wet day. 
 
 The business (three cases) was over by six in the even- 
 ing. Having palmed off a public breakfast upon the 
 people, I gave them no public dinner (see p. 72). The 
 only peculiarity in Court was, it was the first time I had 
 been on the bench since the recent passing of the bill 
 which I mentioned that Rutherfurd and I had prepared 
 last spring for quashing the objection of relationship, 
 with its consequent option, the initial examination, 
 and the necessity of having every witness out of Court. 
 All this tedious and unjust nonsense is now extinguished. 
 It is a satisfaction to recollect that in my own practice, 
 and unless when compelled by a weak brother, 1 had never 
 put the initial interrogations. 
 
 AVe crossed to St. Catherine's and came here yesterday, 
 where we found Maitland (Solicitor-General), and Archi- 
 bald Davidson (Advocate-Depute), Lord and Lady and 
 William Murray, Mrs. Eigby, and Mrs. Wildman. An 
 agreeable evening. But this is another bad day. 
 
 In crossing from Minard to Castle Lachlan we all — 
 ladies too — tried the line-fishing with no success. But it 
 reminded me of the day, I think in 1808, when I had 
 tried Loch Fyne in the same way with Lord Hermand. 
 He was the iudsre here, with his wife, and his two nieces- — 
 one since married to me, and one to Maitland, — and I 
 was the Advocate-Depute. Robert Bell, now Procurator to 
 the Church, was at Inveraray, with Lord Cullen. It was 
 a bright, calm day, and we paddled about the whole fore- 
 noon. I rowed. His Lordship brought up some great 
 fishes, but not without many a drive, and many a loud 
 direction, and not a total absence of abuse, from the 
 fisherman, who was all deference to my lord so long as no 
 
88 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 fish was on the hook, but no sooner saw that one was in 
 danger of being lost by his lordship's awkwardness, than 
 his whole respect was forgotten, and he bawled, and shook 
 his fist, and directed and scolded most energetically, to 
 the learned juclge^s vast entertainment. The night before, 
 the two judges, who were of opposite politics, and no 
 friends, had met (at supper) for the first time for several 
 years. They were cold to each other at first, but at last 
 liquor soldered them, and by two in the morning (John 
 Richardson, Bell, and I, alone being present) they were 
 embracing and vowing eternal friendship, and toasting 
 each other's wives, and giving us young ones imita- 
 tions of the old lawyers. I scarcely ever saw such a 
 scene. But it was not unjudicial in those days. Cullen 
 was in bed all next day, and never saw his own Circuit 
 Court, but the immortal head of Hermand was clear 
 and cool next morning by six, and after a few hours of 
 business and a long sail, he returned to the charge at 
 dinner with a picturesque and cordial exuberance of spirits 
 which the concentrated kindness and gaiety of all Argyle- 
 shire could not have equalled. 
 
 Hermand, Friday, lUh September 1840. — On Monday 
 last, the 7th, we left Strachur for Kilmun, a beautiful day, 
 and a delightful stage of sixteen miles. And we had 
 ample time to enjoy the melancholy beauty of Loch Eck, 
 for our steeds did not choose to hasten through the scene 
 faster than three and a half miles in the hour, and one of 
 them at last stood still, and had it not been for the 
 vicinity of a Samaritan cottar, who lent us a substitute, 
 we might possibly have been obliged to survey that narrow 
 strip of water by moonlight, and under the morning 
 dawn. It was comfortable to see that our proper beast 
 was not much fatisjued, for no sooner was he liberated 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1840. 89 
 
 than he at once proceeded to a most active graze. We 
 were in time, after all, for the steamer, which soon swept 
 us out into the busy and glorious Clyde, the most varied, 
 magnificent, and enjoyable of inland seas. The sun was 
 hastening home, and threw his parting light on almost the 
 whole circle of bright and striking towns and villages, by 
 which its edges are specked ; on Kilmun, Dunoon, Gourock, 
 Greenock, Helensburgh, and on many hamlets, besides 
 kindling the summits of the finest collection of noble and 
 picturesque mountain peaks in the world. After a shame- 
 fully awkward debarkation of the carriage at Greenock, 
 we proceeded to my daughter's at Erskine Manse, where 
 we stayed that night. 
 
 Next morning (Tuesday the 8th) I went to Glasgow, 
 but was compelled, by a mistake about horses, to go, with 
 the vulgar, by a steamer ! a degradation of the judicial 
 dignity whereat the Justice-Clerk will be greatly shocked. 
 Our 54 or 55 cases were got through yesterday by four 
 o'clock, that is, in three short days. They were mostly 
 trashy thefts, and we literally had not two hours' speaking 
 from the bar, taking it all together, and neither Meadow- 
 bank nor I think it our duty to preach regularly to every 
 prisoner. 
 
 As soon as we got off I came here. 
 
 I forgot to mention before, that twenty youths from 
 Oxford and Cambridge, with two tutors, have been living 
 for about two and a half months at Inveraray, and eight at 
 Oban. 
 
 I heard some lamentation at Inveraray when I was ex- 
 tolling the woods of Glenfeochan and Loch Melfort, about 
 the probable consequences of their all having been sold to 
 the Bunaw Iron Company for charcoal. Such sales are 
 hurtful, or the reverse, according to circumstances. How- 
 ever injurious to any particular spot a senseless massacre 
 
90 CIR C Uir JO URNE \ 'S. 
 
 of wood may be, nothing can be more favourable to the 
 general cultivation of trees than a market for them. 
 Accordingly, I see that this groundless foreboding about 
 the Bunaw Company was made above seventy years ago, 
 and the country, though not timbered, is foliaged still. " At 
 Bunaw, near the north end, is a large salmon fishery, also 
 a considerable iron-foundry, ivhich I fear ivill soon devour the, 
 heautifiil ivoods of the countryj' So predicted Pennant in 
 the year 1769. 
 
 I had so much to see that the only book I could get 
 read was the Fathjinder, which I was told was Cooper's 
 best novel. It is his worst. The occurrences that marked 
 the period when the French, the English, and the original 
 natives fought for the soil of North America, supplied 
 some excellent materials both for true and for fictitious 
 narrative. But they were too few and too simple for 
 much of it. They are devoid of the variety and interest 
 which history and society alone furnish. Accordingly, 
 Cooper, in these stories, is always copying himself. It is 
 all one what the title of any of his Indian tales may be, 
 for they all produce exactly the same impression, through 
 substantially the same scenes and characters. It is always 
 the wily Indian with his rifle that never misses ; the brave, 
 honourable, and obstinate English officer ; the gentle and 
 heroic woman, braving bullets, tomahawks, long marches, 
 and the fiery sieges of the wooden fortress ; the noble 
 savage, with all the gallantry of chivalry, and all the mag- 
 nanimity of Christianity ; the trail through the forest ; the 
 canoe and the rapids ; eyes glaring through bushes ; red 
 skins and pale skins; hostile tribes, with their skilful 
 leaders and odd names, etc. This does well once, but not 
 often. Cooper is never original, or in his element, except 
 in a ship. His home is on the deep. 
 
GLASGOW CIECUIT. 
 
 Winter 1841. 
 
 Edinburgh, I Ith January 184L — I returned yesterday 
 from holding the Glasgow Winter Circuit. 
 
 On Monday the 4th, my daughter Elizabeth, Miss Kosa 
 Macbean, and I, went, amidst heavy snow and bitter 
 cold, to my daughter Mrs. Stewart's at the Manse of 
 Erskine. I stayed there all night, and went next morn- 
 ing to breakfast at Moore Park, near Govan, where my 
 colleague Lord Medwyn was, at his nephew's, Charles 
 Forbes, banker. We went from that, in procession, to 
 Court. 
 
 There were 68 cases, of which 65 were tried, the 
 other three being put off from absence of witnesses 
 or of culprits. There were two cases which occupied 
 a whole day from nine one morning till four next 
 morning, yet, except one immaterial case which Medwyn 
 remained to try to-day (Monday), the whole business 
 was leisurely and patiently gone through on Saturday 
 night, and I came home (still through snow and frost) 
 yesterday. 
 
 Medwyn, though more of a monk in matters of religion 
 or politics than any man I know, is an excellent, judicious, 
 humane, practical judge, with great industry, and a deep 
 sense of official duty. Though pious, and acquainted, by 
 long administration of the affairs both of the innocent and 
 the guilty poor, with the feelings of the lower orders 
 
92 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 when in distress, he agrees with me in the uselessness, if 
 not the hurtfulness, of the judge preaching to every 
 prisoner who is undergoing sentence. 
 
 We had three capital cases, a murder, a rape, and a 
 robbery. But though each was as clearly proved as if the 
 commission of the fact had been actually seen, and each 
 was a very aggravated case of its kind, such is the pre- 
 vailing aversion to capital punishment, that no verdict 
 inferring such a punishment could be obtained, and these 
 horrid culprits were only transported. It can't be helped 
 as yet, perhaps, but this want of sympathy between law 
 and the public is very unseemly. The public is wrong. 
 
 We had also a bad case of bigamy, for which, according 
 to our usage, we could only send the lieartless, perfidious 
 villain for one year to jail. This, till lately, was the 
 English punishment also, but within these two years they 
 have got a statute extending it to seven years transporta- 
 tion. I have already renewed my recommendation to 
 the Lord Advocate (A. Rutherfurd) to try to pass such an 
 Act for Scotland. 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT. 
 
 Spring 1841. 
 
 Langholm, Saturday Nighty lOth April 1841. — I left 
 Edinburgh, on this South Spring Circuit, on the morn- 
 ing of Wednesday last, the 7th instant, with Mrs. Cock- 
 burn and my niece Graham Maitland. Meadowbank is to 
 go to Ayr ; I have been at Jedburgh, and am proceeding 
 to Dumfries. 
 
 After being dragged up, with our backs to the glories 
 of Edinburgh, to Middleton Moor, we swept down, amid 
 the silent peacefulness of the Gala, to Melrose. It was 
 about thirty years since I had gone into the Abbey, and I 
 was very glad that the necessity of showing it to Graham 
 compelled me to see it again. It is greatly improved in 
 keeping, being really, at last, decently clean and respect- 
 able. But they have allowed a brewery to get up 
 within, I should suppose, 100 yards of the principal 
 window. John Bowers, too, who has shown it for about 
 forty years, and who even makes drawings of it thought 
 worthy of being engraved, though, I dare say, a worthy 
 man, has two faults, — one that somebody has told him to 
 eschew plain Scotch, and so he called the ruin " a grand 
 Rowen',' and gave it as his opinion that if the great window 
 were to be destroyed it would " create a vast vacuum;" the 
 other that, though for anything I know he may be qualified 
 for the Presidency of the strictest Temperance Society, he 
 has a very whisl^yfied visage. Shall we never see these 
 
04 CTR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 Scotch fragments, waited upon by attendants worthy of 
 them % By the respectful, well dressed, reverential old 
 man, the nice, tidy, decent, kindly woman, or the gentle 
 and intelligent girl. 
 
 We stopped at Kirklands (Richardson's, near Ancrum) 
 for about an hour and a half. Beautiful, but there is 
 always sadness in the emptiness and silence of a friend's 
 house. 
 
 I processed into Jedburgh that day at four, and next 
 day (the 8th) disposed of the criminal business, and of 
 a dull public dinner. I went back to Court for two hours 
 next day, to hear two appeals, and this ended the Jethart 
 Justice of this spring. The Court was crowded on the 
 second day to hear the discussion of an appeal, which, 
 divested of all surplusage, came to this point, whether the 
 burial, by an owner, in his own ground, of a dead horse 
 implied such dereliction that the abstraction of it was not 
 theft? The Sheriff-Substitute had decided no theft, 
 which I reversed. 
 
 I went, duly, morning and evening, to linger over that 
 massive and curious ruin, to which, far more than even to 
 its sweet and secluded position, Jedburgh owes its princij^al 
 interest. A glorious pile, nobly placed ; but disgrace- 
 fully, most disgracefully, abused. What extenuation can 
 even charity suggest for the atrocity of converting one- 
 half of the building into the parish church, a proceeding 
 by which, for the sake of saving the heritors from the 
 expense of a new church, one-half of the old cathedral 
 windows have been nearly built up, and the antiquity of 
 the place has been interfered with. Letting a Ruther- 
 ford of Edgerston get a bright new gimcrack, and richly 
 ornamented tomb put over his bones, idtliin the old 
 building, and a loliole aide of it locked up for his special 
 comfort, is a piece of taste of the same kind. The Bai-ons 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1S41. 95 
 
 of Exchequer had great merit in clearing Arbroath Abbey 
 unsparingly of the whole of this •' rubbish," as it was 
 called, to the immense indignation of the descendants of 
 the intruding defuncts. The apology for the Edgerston 
 abomination is, that his titles gave him a right to it, 
 which, being interpreted, means that m usual, some of his 
 cunning ancestors chose to put this right into his private 
 parchments. Then the manse, and a private school, and 
 a dyer's work, and many hovels, all permitted to jostle and 
 elbow the unprotected majesty of the sacred, mouldering 
 edifice. One hundred thousand pounds, or certainly two, 
 would clear and purify all the old historical buildings in 
 Scotland, and would keep them permanently right, and I 
 don't know how the money could be laid better out. But 
 I believe the whole four abbeys of Roxburghshire are 
 private property. 
 
 Yet, in spite of all its surrounding bad taste and selfish 
 disregardedness, how beautiful was this one ! With its 
 clear stream, its hanging gardens, and its young foliage. 
 This is a very early spring, and many of the planes, and 
 more of the poplars, stood out amidst primroses, and a 
 whole world of bursting buds, in rich, bright, fresh verdure, 
 exhibiting one of the best pictures of the decay of the 
 works of art, in combination with the eternal youth 
 of the w^orks of nature, and of the holy softness that is 
 breathed over the latter by the pathetic interest of the 
 former. 
 
 We left Jedburgh about one yesterday, and came up the 
 Teviot to Hawick, and from that to Borthwickbrae, where 
 we stayed till this forenoon, when w^e came here by Moss 
 Paul. "^ 
 
 The weather has been beautiful, the perfection, indeed, 
 of a Scotch spring — bright, calm, and very dry, and with 
 no foolish prematurity of heat, but on the contrary, witli 
 
96 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 a sensible, prospective sharpness, which, though it may 
 make us sometimes envy the opening of a more southern 
 climate, gives us the comfortable assurance that every leaf 
 that is born will live. The whole country has been 
 beautiful, the hedges nearly green, every bank sweet with 
 primroses and wood anemone ; the larches clothed in 
 their early, short-lived freshness ; all the village gardens 
 gay with yellow daffodils and green gooseberry bushes; 
 larks revelling in the sky, and mavises in every wood ; the 
 fields in that delightful state of weedless cleanliness, that 
 shows the exact nature of every agricultural operation, and 
 makes one think it would be pleasant to play upon them. 
 And then these quiet pastoral hills ! The descent, through 
 them, from Moss Paul to this tranquil place, was delight- 
 ful. Langholm was lying in its valley, at the junction of 
 its waters, under an evening so sunny and so sweet, that 
 one can scarcely avoid believing that every poor man 
 would be happy if he could only get all his Saturdays to 
 close so softly. And what a fact to be able to record of 
 any town, that though comfortable and well ordered, it is 
 so simple that there is not a single lamp in any part of 
 any street within it. It was all pitch dark to-night at 
 nine. Except from the shop of ''^Anderson, Baker and 
 Grocer,'' there was not so much as one candle shining from 
 one window. Yet the people were not all asleep. On the 
 contrary they were walking about in considerable numbers, 
 only as no one could see his, or her neighbour, they seemed 
 to feel the necessity of hailing, for I never heard so much 
 whistling. 
 
 We explored Langholm Lodge. Nothing. And ill 
 kept. But Buccleuch is a many-placed Duke. 
 
 LocHMABEN, Sunday Night, Wth April 1841. — I saw 
 this morninii that there was a sraswork at Lans-holm, and 
 
SOUTH CIRCUir— SPRING 1841. 97 
 
 gas burners in the streets. But the work seemed cold, 
 and the burners were without glasses, and rusty. 
 
 We meant to have come directly from Langholm to this, 
 but, attracted by the beauty of the drive, which I knew, 
 and by the hope of English muffins, we went round by 
 Longtown, where we breakfasted to-day. 
 
 It is indeed a beautiful drive, one of the most beautiful 
 ill the Scotch Lowlands. But we were too early in the 
 season for it, for it depends much upon its forest trees 
 being in leaf, not merely from the charm of foliage, but 
 because this valley is the better of having the poverty of 
 its hills — if they deserve the name — hid. But still the 
 river, the pines, the evergreens round almost every house, 
 the comfortable villages and farms, and above all, the 
 general appearance of care, culture, and of an interest in 
 the beauty of the district, make that a delightful stage 
 at any period of the year. It is the most gentlemanUke 
 stage in Scotland. 
 
 And the muffins were excellent. Dinner is the English 
 meal, breakfast the Scotch, An Englishman's certainty 
 of getting a good dinner, seems to make him indifferent 
 about his breakfast, while the substantiality of a Scotch- 
 man's breakfast impairs, or at least might impair, his 
 interest in his dinner. However, the vicinity of Scotland 
 has instructed the people of Longtown, and the whole 
 morning set-out was capital. But the peculiar glory 
 belonged to the muffins ; things which Scotland never 
 succeeds in imitating. 
 
 We went from Longtown to Ecclefechan, where we 
 stayed an hour to let the horses rest. I tried to reach 
 Hoddam Castle during this pause, but could not. It 
 seemed the only thing worth seeing on that road, except 
 a place wdiich had the appearance of being a very nice 
 modern house, with its bank, river, and old castle. 
 
 G 
 
98 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 We got here from Ecclefechan about half-past three, 
 24 miles from Longtown, — the whole way respectable 
 in point of agriculture, so far as one who is no farmer 
 could judge, and there its merits end. 
 
 Contrary to our expectation, we have found a decent 
 hostelry in this wretched carcass of a royal burgh. Yet 
 they have their provost, and their town house with a spire, 
 and their cross, which last reminds me to mention that 
 the people of Melrose have lately repaired the pedestal of 
 theirs, and well. Hermand used to say that he always 
 detected a royal burgh by its stink. 
 
 I went and saw the castle. It must have been a strong 
 place once, but is truly a ruin now. I don't see how any 
 fragment of it can survive above ground fifty years longer. 
 It has plainly been skinned. The ashlar work has been 
 removed both outside and in, for the sake of the materials, 
 and nothing left but the interstice, a rude conglomeration 
 of mortar and of water-worn stones, in their round, 
 natural state. The walls stand by the mere tenacity of 
 the lime, without any solidity from the weight or position 
 of the stones. It should be all given up to ivy. In its 
 best days it must have been the least interesting of all our 
 great castles. Nothing can exceed the paltriness of its- 
 situation, with its flat, bare, rockless, islandless loch, its 
 own few wretched trees, and the poor beggarly idiot of a 
 burgh that stares at it. 
 
 We go to Dumfries to-morrow morning, and I fancy my 
 next note will be at Thornhill, on our way home on Tues- 
 day. 
 
 Thornhill, Tuesday Night, \Wi Ap-il 1841.— We left 
 Lochmaben yesterday morning about half-past seven, and 
 went to Dumfries. This ended the new part of my road, 
 which was from Lonijtown to Dumfries. There is noth- 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1841. 99 
 
 ing to be recorded concerning this last stage, except 
 the prospect of Dumfries and its vicinity from a hill 
 about half a mile before reaching Torthorwald kirk. It 
 was extensive and splendid, the bright sun glittering 
 on the roofs of the Dumfries houses, and on the sides 
 of countless farms and country mansions, all of which 
 had their white sides exposed to the clear morning 
 liglit. 
 
 I was in Court yesterday till six in the evening, with 
 very common cases, after which we had a grand dinner. 
 The draft ale excellent. To-day I was in Court till four, 
 when we came here. 
 
 We includes James Craufurd, the Advocate-Depute, 
 who has been with us since Jedburgh, but leaves us to- 
 morrow for Ayr — an honourable, able youth, with more 
 of an Irishman in his manner than any Scotsman of my 
 present acquaintance. 
 
 I saw nothing whatever of Dumfries this time. Mrs. 
 Cockburn brought me the following epitaph from a 
 Covenanter's tomb in the churchyard : — 
 
 Stop, passenger, read ! Here interred doth he 
 A witness 'gainst poor Scotland's perjury ; 
 Whose head, once fixt up on the Bridgeport stood. 
 Proclaiming vengeance for her guiltless blood. 
 
 Wm. Pentland, 1667. 
 
 I was told a singularly pleasing fact about their Lun- 
 atic Asylum. A box is occasionally taken in the theatre 
 for the patients, who go respectably in coaches and sit 
 happily and enjoy the play. A very curious and delight- 
 ful fact. 
 
 Mr. Montgomery Bell and Mr. Young, both advocates, 
 who are going to Ayr to-morrow with Craufurd, dined 
 with us here. Very pleasant. Except myself, the house 
 
100 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 is all snoring, and I proceed to snore too. Dalveen to- 
 morrow ! 
 
 Wednesday Morning, lith April 1841, Thornhill. — 
 Just leaving Mrs. Glendinning and her hotel, which are 
 both as worthy as I found them in 1839 of the traveller's 
 attention. The day is not what I would have it, being 
 showery, but we may possibly have a gleam for the Pass. 
 His Grace has built a new and respectable-looking church 
 here since I was last at this place, for which, of course, he 
 has the curses of the Dissenters, who greatly prefer the 
 decline of the Church to the rise of knowledge. I have 
 heard it said that there is an extent of wretchedness in 
 Thornhill beyond what is usual even in Highland villages. 
 But I don't believe it, because it is inconsistent with the 
 prevalent air of decided comfort that appears, the clean- 
 ness of the streets, the substantiality of the houses, and. 
 above all, the wholeness and cleanness of all the windows. 
 
 Troloss Toll-Bar, half-past 10 A.M., lUh April 1841. — 
 I have stopped here for an hour in mercy to the beasts, for 
 whom this twenty-mile stage from Thornhill to Crawford 
 is far too long. 
 
 I adhere to my former feeling about Drumlanrig, chiefly 
 that the hills round it, in so far as they can be considered 
 as connected with the house, are stupidly lumpish. But 
 in reference to farms, keeping, and attention to the people, 
 the whole country exhibits those constant proofs of 
 judicious munificence which mark the family of Buccleuch. 
 But for the repetition by Burn of himself in every build- 
 ing, the farm-houses are beautifully jDlaced, planned, and 
 kept, and a great landowner's history cannot be more 
 honourably read than in the comfort and obvious improv- 
 ingness of the whole district. 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT-SPRING 1841. 101 
 
 The day is bright, and I have had a walk through the 
 Pass, the finest, certainly, in any pastoral region of Scot- 
 land. I should like to see it by moonlight. The smooth- 
 ness of the velvet hills, which indeed forms the principal 
 charm of the scene, is very strange, considering their steep- 
 ness and the wateryness of the climate. I should have 
 expected the rills to have broken the surface into a 
 hundred gullies thousands of years ago. 
 
 But the horses say they are ready for another pull, and 
 I am not sorry to get quit of William Anderson's squalling 
 bairns. But no wonder they squall, because as soon as we 
 came in they were dragged to a pail and got their faces 
 washed, and then Mrs. Cockburn gave them oranges, the 
 cutting, and skinning, and eating of which, with all the 
 consequent competition, and battling for the knife, and 
 interference of the mother, only increased the confusion. 
 
 I ought to have mentioned Durisdeer, which, there is 
 no reason to doubt, is as shabby inside as most Scotch 
 villages, but outside, and seen from a distance, has always 
 struck me with its remoteness and solitude. I first saw it 
 when I was walking alone from Closeburn school — where 
 I had been commissioned by my father to go and place 
 my brother Montague — to Edinburgh, in my nineteenth or 
 twentieth year, and have never lost the impression made 
 upon me, early in the morning, by the loneliness of that 
 still, smokeless, and silent village. It is like a town one 
 would expect to meet with in the wilds of Arabia. 
 
 BONALY, Thursday Evening, 15 /A A'pril 1841. — We got 
 to Edinburgh last night about seven, after a cloudless day. 
 Under such a sky, desolate though it be, the whole region 
 from Thornhill to Edinburgh is excellent. 'To me, its 
 desolation- is its charm. The wide open hills and moors, 
 unbroken by wood, the solitude rather deepened than 
 
1 02 CIR C UIT JO URNE \ S. 
 
 interfered with, by an occasional hut or farm-house ; the 
 appearances of life and of human care, in the white 
 clothes laid out on the patch of bright grass beside the 
 sparkling burn, in the little bit of garden, and in the 
 dirty children chasing the mutinous pig ; the admirable 
 fields that are reclaimed, wherever they are reclaimable, 
 by skill and patient labour, the sound of the mail-coach 
 horn surprising the ear in these wastes, and then dying 
 away with the rattle of the carriage, and leaving the 
 wilds again to their natural, thoughtful stillness ; making 
 acquaintance with Clyde in his infancy, and when he has 
 scarcely collected himself into a visible river ; the gradual 
 descent from the higher district till we get down into 
 Lothian, and are absorbed in the metropolis ; what is 
 wanted to make this course delightful, except a just 
 impression of the interest imparted to it by what is called 
 the dreariness of the upland districts % 
 
 My books were the treatises on Political Philosophy 
 written by Brougham and published by the Society for 
 the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, but not in his name, 
 and Master Humphrey s Clock. His Lordship's expositions 
 are able and vigorous, and have the great advantage of 
 containing the views and feelings of a practical statesman. 
 But on the other hand he ventures, and with great con- 
 fidence, as might be expected from the man, into subjects 
 such as China and the Antiquities of the Feudal System, of 
 which he apparently knows less than ordinary writers, 
 and, on the whole, I thought him dull. But who could 
 be anything else than dull, when reading him implied not 
 reading Dickens ! This man seems likely to do, in novel 
 writing, for England, what Scott has done for Scotland. 
 He has opened a new era in the art. All his works are 
 excellent, but Nell has set this one above them all. What 
 a beautiful concej^tion, and how beautifully executed ! I 
 
S0U7H CIRCUIT—SPRING 1841. 103 
 
 doubt if there be anything in nature to justify such a 
 strange monster as Quilp, a London Caliban. Tha Clock 
 and the Club seems an awkward apparatus for the author 
 to trouble himself with. Scott excepted (who I think as 
 yet far Dickens's superior), no man but Shakespeare has 
 fancied and wrought out so many original characters. But 
 even this is not his chief praise, which is due to the 
 warmth and sincerity with which he uniformly encourages 
 right i^rinciples and good affections, not by vague or grandi- 
 loquent declamation, but by adhering to truth and nature. 
 I saw a letter from Jeffrey to-day, from London, in which 
 he says that Dickens tells him that the sale of these 
 weekly numbers of the Clock amounts at present to 
 45,000, and is on the rise. Very honourable to him, and 
 very good for the public, but it is bad for a man of 
 genius to be fettered, though by chains of gold, till he 
 perform any weekly task. 
 
 But there is nothing, even in all Dickens, so agreeable 
 as the lunatics at the play. 
 
NORTH C I E C U I T. 
 
 Autumn 1841. 
 
 Tyndrum, Monday Night, 'SOth August 1841. — I left 
 Edinburgh for this North Circuit on Saturday last, the 
 28th instant, with Mrs. Cockburn, my daughter Jane, 
 my son Frank, and my niece Graham Maitland, in and 
 about an open carriage. 
 
 Our first day's journey was by Stirling to Dunira, 
 where we stayed all yesterday. And to-day we came on, 
 by Lochearn Head and Luib, here. 
 
 Up to this point I have nothing to say beyond what I 
 said last autumn. But 1 think it is exactly thirty-two 
 years since I last put up at this unchanged inn. I ran 
 past it last September on my way to Dalmally, merely 
 getting fresh horses, and did not come out of the carriage. 
 I have sauntered about to-day, both in the forenoon and 
 evening, and renewed my acquaintance with the numerous 
 and glorious peaks which distinguish the district. It is a 
 magnificent region, most picturesque in the forms of its 
 mountains, and sublime in its solitude. It was a fair and 
 rather mild, but a calm, cloudy, melancholy day; the sides 
 of the hills moved over by films of vapour, like Ossian's 
 ghosts, and the thin clouds through which his heroes 
 behold the stars. There was but one moment of sun- 
 shine all day, just at the day's close, when a whole world of 
 light haze, which had clustered round the summits of the 
 mountains, was enflamed into red, and then faded again 
 into the dead grey in which it wrapped them for the night, 
 
 vSome variety is given to this Highland scene by its 
 
xYOR TH CIR C UIT—A UTUMN 1 84 1 • 1 05 
 
 mining, — wretched mining in reference to science, and, I 
 suspect, in reference to profit, for tlie poor human emmets 
 have been scratching the same ravine, and apparently only 
 on its surface, for above sixty years. But the high 
 placed apparatus, the peculiarity of the operation, and the 
 detached, colonial, appearance of the workmen, give it all 
 a picturesque air. 
 
 The dwellings of the people in Tyndrum proper, that 
 is, the holes in which they burrow, are disgraceful, and 
 nearly inconceivable, even in Scotland. 
 
 To-morrow for Glencoe ! 
 
 Ballachulish, Z\si August ISil, jS'tglit. — And when 
 will there ever be a more glorious Glencoe % A mild, calm, 
 brilliant day, the sky garnished by gorgeous, huge, white 
 clouds, sailing above their shadows, over the mountains, 
 and not a drop of rain, though in a very rainy season, not 
 even the fear of a drop, till a short, fairy shower imparted 
 the only other desirable charm to the upper part of 
 Glencoe. 
 
 We left Tyndrum about nine, and got here about five. 
 
 The whole thirty-six miles are a range of unbroken, and 
 in so far as Britain or Ireland are concerned, I suspect, of 
 unrivalled mountain magnificence. The great peculiarities 
 are the detached position, and the peaked form, of the 
 hills. Each is magnificent, both by itself, and as one of a 
 collection. The first five miles, including the retrospect, 
 after leaving Tyndrum, — the six or seven after leaving 
 Inveroran, — and the whole sixteen from King's House to 
 this, not only defy my powers of description, but of fancy- 
 ing improvement. Last year Dalmally superseded Avie- 
 more, this year Tyndrum has superseded Dalmally, and 
 I only hope that the Cuillin Hills, towards which I am 
 veering, may supersede Tyndrum. 
 
1 06 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 AVhat I have been in the .society ot all this day have 
 been mere mountains. There have been no arms of the 
 sea, no lakes (for Tulla is but a pool), no buildings, 
 modern or in ruins, no woods, no islands, no distant pro- 
 spects (except of summits), nothing to interfere with the 
 claims of the solitary majestic heights on our thought, 
 and I can scarcely conceive the mind that can be insensible 
 to their sublimity. 
 
 Yet, with what rapture is a day of admiration, or 
 rather of awe, succeeded by the mingling of beauty with 
 grandeur, when we emerge from the stern gully of Glencoe, 
 to the more open brightness of this delicious Loch Leven. 
 Never but twice, once at this very place, when I last saw 
 it in 1819, and once, still further back, when from the 
 coast of Ayrshire I saw the sun sink behind Arran, have 
 I beheld a more glorious sunset than this evening. What 
 a blaze over the heights behind Ardgour 1 And when 
 these heights intercepted the luminary, and showed us 
 nothing but darkness on the sides of the hills next us, 
 with what a soft vapoury splendour did he stream down 
 the valleys, till he at last resigned the whole scene to 
 slow-coming, gentle night, and to a moon which did what 
 it could in its way, but though about full, and with a 
 placid, inland, lake-like sea to work upon, could make 
 itself no rival to such a close of such a day. 
 
 I cannot hope ever again to see such 36 miles. 
 And I have to remark two facts. One is, another 
 example of mining, or rather of quarrying, being pictur- 
 esque. The Ballachulish slate quarries are singularly so. 
 The other is, that though the faces of the people, and 
 particularly of the women and children, would certainly 
 thole a little more water, they positively seem to be much 
 cleaner than they used to be. I mean the whole way 
 from Dunira to this. But the people are tolerably 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1841. 107 
 
 educated, and every way well behaved ; and if their 
 habits could be raised, and the climate would sometimes 
 make it possible for their clothes or skins to be a tveek 
 dry, their comfort in dirt would soon cease. So long, 
 however, as they are worse housed than their swine, 
 nothing above the habits of swine can be expected. 
 
 I see that Anderson in his generally very sensible 
 Guide to the Highlands and Islands, gives it as his 
 opinion that ''the stage of 18 miles to King's House 
 (from Tyndrum) is hleak and sterile" What the devil 
 would he be at 1 Does he want wheat-fields, and larch 
 weeds. His sole praise is to Loch Tulla, the only paltry 
 part of the scenery, which he calls '* picturesque." And 
 the road over the Black Mount, which exhibits the most 
 glorious mountain prospects, and which nature plainly 
 compelled the road to be taken over in order that these 
 might be seen, is described as crossing " a tedious, high, 
 and tiresome hill, called the Black Mount." But he 
 probably saw it all on a bad day, when his knapsack was 
 fretting his back, and his shoe his toe, and his inward 
 man longing for the King's House whisky. 
 
 We have found this inn on the sduth side of the water 
 decently comfortable, better, so far as I could judge from 
 merely calling, than the one at the north side. 
 
 But the north one was still kept by Angus Cameron, 
 who had it w4ien I passed three days under his roof in 
 1819, the most iJerfedUj beautiful days my memory can 
 recall. Even this evening it has been chietly through the 
 eyes of those days that I have been able to see this 
 paradise of Scotch sea scenes. 
 
 Angus was the best piper in his day, and, when only 
 eighteen, gained the competition prize at Edinburgh. 
 But he had the misfortune to marry what was called " a 
 leddy," — a very good wife, I hope, but who thought the 
 
1 OS CIK CUIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 pipes below her dignity, and so fiercely discouraged them, 
 that at last she has compelled her spouse totally to 
 abandon the source of all his glory. On one occasion, 
 when he was delighting a crowd of admirers, and would 
 not take a gentle hint, she stepped forward with a knife 
 and stabbed the bag. 
 
 Though giving great praise to old rivals, and to young 
 aspirants, he bemoaned the general decline of the art, for he 
 said that there was not now one single " real piper — a man 
 who made the pipe his business," in the whole of Appin. 
 I suggested that it was probably owing to the want of 
 county militia regiments, for the Highland colonels used 
 to take their pipers with them. But he eschewed this, 
 saying that we had plenty pipers long before the militia 
 was heard of. I then suggested the want of training. 
 " Ay ! there 's a deal in that, for it does tak edication ! 
 a deal o' edication." But then, why were they "no 
 edicated"? So he hit it on the very head, by saying it 
 was the decline of chieftains, and their castles and gather- 
 ings. " Yes," said I, " few of them live at home now." 
 '' At hame ! ou, they 're a' deed ! an' they 're a' puir ! an' 
 they 're a' English !" 
 
 His complimentary reasons for our sitting down in his 
 house were very Highland. "There's a cliyre for you, 
 mem, for ye 're heavy, an' no' able to stan' like ither folk." 
 " An' here 's a chyre for you, mem, for ye 're young an' 
 tender ! " " An' here 's a chyre for ye, ma Lord, for your 
 Lordship and me 's gettin' doon the hill noo." We thought 
 there was neither weight, nor weakness, nor age among us. 
 
 Invermoriston Inn, \8t September 184L — We came 
 here from Ballachulish, by Fort William, yesterday, through 
 a torrent of uninterrupted rain. It was dull — dull — and 
 horrible ; made worse. I have no doubt, from the wav not 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1841. 109 
 
 being new to me. But we were very merry, and had a 
 sumptuous repast of oatcakes, eggs, and whisky, at Letter- 
 finlay, the worst shelter for poor travellers I have ever 
 been in. But I slept soundly in it in 1819. 
 
 There is not much (for Scotland) in the space between 
 Linnlie Loch and Loch Ness. But all of these are 
 beautiful, and the rain and the mist just disclosed enough 
 of them to let us know what we were losing. 
 
 I was surprised by seeing that brutal obelisk still stand- 
 ing near Invergarry Castle, which the late Glengarry 
 erected about 1812 to commemorate what his inscription 
 styles " the mift course of feudal justice^' which means the 
 murder by one of his ancestors of seven men. It was 
 defaced for many years by passengers and the people, and 
 when I saw it, with Thomas Telford, engineer, very soon 
 after its first erection, he could scarcely keep his hand 
 off it. But it was protected by a lodge.^ 
 
 The great Highland estate of Glengarry, consisting of a 
 magnificent country, was sold last year to Lord Ward, by 
 the son of him of the obelisk, to pay his father's debts ; 
 and this son, the existing Glengarry, a respectable young- 
 man, I am told, is trying what he can do in Australia. 
 His father was famous in his day, and by flattery and the 
 affectation of Highland usages, had the good fortune to 
 
 1 [The inscription is given at length in a curious book called the Jeio 
 Exile, published in 1828, thus : — " As a memorial of the ample and sum- 
 mary vengeance which, in the swift course of feudal justice (intiicted by 
 the Lords M 'Donald and Aross), overtook the foul murder of the Keppoch 
 family, a branch of the powerful and illustrious clan of which his Lordship 
 was the chief. This monument is erected by Col. M 'Donald of Glen- 
 garry XVII. Mac-Mhic-Alaister, his successor and representative, in the 
 year of our Lord 1812. 
 
 "The heads of these seven murderers were presented at the feet of the 
 noble chief, in Glengarry Castle, after having been washed in this spring, 
 and ever since that event, which took place early in the sixteenth century, 
 it has been called bv the name of Tobenian Keann— The well of the heads."' 
 
1 10 CIRCUI T JO URNE YS. 
 
 get Sir Walter Scott to immortalise him in several of his 
 works, as a fine specimen of the chieftain. But none 
 knew better than Scott that he was a paltry and odious 
 fellow, with all the vices of the bad chieftain and none of 
 the virtues of the good one ; with the selfishness, cruelty, 
 fraud, arrogant pretension and base meanness of the one, 
 without the fidelity to superiors, and the generosity to 
 vassals, the hospitality, or the courage of the other. 
 
 Scott used to account for his enduring these sort of 
 people, by saying that they were " savage and picturesque, 
 both of whicli is in my way." 
 
 The only fearlessness he ever displayed was in an act of 
 madness which Telford (the engineer) and I saw, and to 
 which, as to his duel, he was driven by insolent fury. A 
 boat, in which he wished to cross Loch Oich, or Loch 
 Lochy, left the shore without him, and a laugh showed 
 that it had done so on purpose to avoid him., on which he 
 plunged, with the pony he was on, into the water, to 
 swim after it. The people pretended not to see, au'l 
 rowed as hard as they decently could. Telford and 
 others were in ecstasy with the hope that they were at 
 last to be relieved of him. And certainly he ought to 
 have been drowned. But after being carried very nearly 
 across (a mile I should suppose), by the vigour of a 
 creature more meritorious than its rider, he got on board, 
 and was praised for what it had done. 
 
 A rainy day brings out the full measure of the wretched- 
 ness of ill-housed poverty. We saw mud-hovels to-day, 
 and beings with the outward forms of humanity within 
 them, which I suspect the Esquimaux would shudder at. 
 And this, as usual, close beside the great man's gate. We 
 shall see what the English purses, and the English com- 
 fort, of the southern supplanters of our banished, beggarly, 
 but proud, lairds will do. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN \%^\. Ill 
 
 Shiel House, Id September 184:1, Niaht. — We left Inver- 
 moriston this morning, and got here in the evening. The 
 stages are Torgyle 8 miles, Cluany 16, Shiel House 12. 
 As we have been told that there are no post-horses kept 
 along our intended route, we ordered a pair from Inverness 
 to Invermoriston, and we keep these till we reach Inver- 
 ness. There are none kept indeed after leaving Fort 
 William. And there is not even an inn at Fort Augustus. 
 The steamer carries all the world past. Nor, so far, is 
 there a habitable inn between Fort William and this. 
 Letterfinlay I have mentioned. The one at Invermoris- 
 ton ought to be good. If kept by an Englishman, Mrs. 
 Glendinning, its position, at the outlet of Glenmoriston, 
 and within 28 miles of Inverness, would secure its success, 
 even without the aid of its charming scenery. As it is, it 
 is shameful. But it is not a bad specimen of what is 
 called a good Scotch country inn, because, though they 
 knew of our coming, and had seen it pouring all day, they 
 had neither fire nor food prepared, a tea tray was receiv- 
 ing the rain from the skylight of what was given me to 
 dress in ; and the landlord, though married only last week, 
 was drunk. Torgyle, Cluany, and Shiel House are mere 
 drovers' quarters, — and bad quarters for the poorest 
 drovers ; but very civil — with good oatcakes, some 
 tolerable Glasgow " loaf bread," as they call it, excellent 
 eggs, cool water, and passable whisky ; bad wet peats, 
 but good moss timber, and some English coal. Animal 
 food they seem scarcely to know ; and when they catch a 
 lord — even a poor paper lord — they charge him (most 
 properly) higher than he would be charged in the Clarendon 
 Hotel. But these hostels have only whetted our mirth, 
 which is excessive. 
 
 The whole way from Invermoriston till we shall reach. 
 Inverness, has been, and will be, eatirely new to me. 
 
1 1 2 CIR CUIT JO URNE J '.9. 
 
 And so far it is admirable. I have been told to go and 
 see Glenmoriston almost all my life, and now that I have 
 seen it, I am satisfied that I have never got this advice 
 too strongly. And I say so, though I grieve to add, that 
 in point of weather this day was worse than yesterday. 
 But I sat out the whole of both days, and, thanks to 
 caoutchouc, so perfectly dry that I did not require to 
 shift an article on getting housed for the night. 
 
 For our first hour the rain checked itself in order to 
 let us see the lower part of the glen in peace. I cannot 
 pay these four wooded miles, — where the softness of the 
 birch contrasts so naturally with the savage rocky stream 
 — a higher compliment than by saying that they reminded 
 me of some parts of the unrivalled Findhorn, by far 
 the finest of British torrents. All the rivers here are 
 swollen at present, and Moriston was in his fiercest 
 strength. 
 
 As the valley opened and rose, its masses of wood dis- 
 appeared, though it was long adhered to by sprinklings of 
 fine birch and of noble, old, branchy Scotch fir; till at 
 last it was a composition of mountain and of water alone. 
 And it would not be easy to find better s^^ecimens of either. 
 The character of valley is never lost, and indeed throughout 
 it is a glen so narrow, that everything within it — even to 
 near the tops of the countless and almost perpendicular 
 cascades that tear up and whiten the sides of the hills, — 
 is very distinctly visible. There is no cultivation, singu- 
 larly few inhabitants, not one single seat, scarcely above 
 two farm-houses, and these both towards the lower end, 
 not a village, nothing but mountain and water. And I 
 saw enough to satisfy me that the mountains had every- 
 thing that rock, precipitousness, and peaked summits 
 could give them. Seen in a fine day it must be a noble 
 range. I have been particularly struck with the great 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1841. 113 
 
 profusion of peahed knolls and hills. ' That blockhead 
 Anderson (whom I notice only because he is in fashion as 
 a guide) first says that they are " like so many sugar 
 loaves,^' and then explains that '' the slope is like the 
 side of a tent,'' these two things being quite dissimilar. 
 The truth is, that they are not so much peaked as mam- 
 malated. It is at this end at least, a very pappy glen. 
 Loch Cluany, though not to be named among even our 
 fifth-rate lakes, is beautiful, chiefly from its steep sides. 
 Yet this is the very thing that Anderson objects to. 
 " The mountain on the south side rises rather abnqjtlij from 
 the water," — ass ! Except as to miles I 'm done with him. 
 The .sky is now clear, and the moon beautiful, as the 
 bright surface of Loch Duich and the dark sides of the 
 hills opposite this caravansera attest. I go to bed pray- 
 ing, but trembling, for the day to-morrow. I wish I had 
 the price of all the superfluous water I have seen to-day, 
 if it were properly distributed and sold in New South 
 Wales. 
 
 Shiel House, Zd September 1841, Morning. — The day 
 does not promise to be decidedly bad. Blue sky visible, 
 and all the hill-tops. A delightful place this ; touching 
 Loch Duich, all along ridged with precipitous hills, over 
 which the rainbows seem to take a pleasure in smiling. 
 That dog Anderson has excited my wrath again this 
 morning, by saying, which I had not observed before, 
 that " from the east end of Loch Cluany to about four 
 miles beyond the inn, the glen is pretty level, and barren 
 without grandeur r There is not half a mile level in the 
 whole 36 miles; and except that there are no grapes or 
 even wheat, there is not an inch of barrenness in them. 
 Is there any barrenness of torrent or rock ; and for what 
 else did God toss the earth about so % 
 
1 1 4 CIR C UI T JO URNE YS. 
 
 In the garden of the only other house here (which was 
 formerly the inn) I see about sixteen sweet chestnuts and 
 Avalnuts, the former about thirty years old and very healthy, 
 and some more chestnuts at the opposite side of the house. 
 It is a pity that the sensible man, whoever he was, who 
 l^lanted these once not uncommon trees, in this sea-beach 
 place, had not set them in larger masses. They would 
 have kept possession of all the ravines, and all the meadows 
 they had got. 
 
 Kyle Rhea, Skye, same day, i.e. Zd Sejytemher 1841, 
 2 P.M. — Here we are in Skye, as proud as Columbus when 
 he first landed in America. 
 
 The Laird of Ratichan, who lives within a mile of our 
 last night's quarters, sent us a pair of horses to help us up 
 his hill, which is as long a steep pull as I have seen, 
 except perhaps on Corryarick, I should suppose, but it is 
 a mere conjecture, that it must rise from the level of Loch 
 Duich (the sea) at least as high as Arthur Seat, in three 
 miles. But the Laird's beasts, not understanding why they 
 should be set to pull up a Saxon coach, had the skill to keep 
 their rope traces almost always slack, a propensity which 
 the whip of the Saxon driver behind them only increased. 
 
 There is a good view of Loch Duich and its hills (which 
 rise " rather abruptly ") from the top. It is the scene of 
 this region; but, though very good, it is surpassed by 
 hundreds of other Scotch firths. The road throughout 
 the rest of the twelve miles to the ferry on what tee now 
 call the mainland opposite this, insinuates itself very skil- 
 fully through the same succession of hills that distinguished 
 yesterday ; but they get gradually lower and more open, 
 till near the ferry they spread themselves out in good 
 open south country pasture. 
 
 This ferry, though boasted as the best in Skye, is detest- 
 
NORTH CI RCUir-^AUrU MN 1841. 115 
 
 able, at least for carriages, and as ill-conducted as possible. 
 But what can a ferry be for carriages, where ours is only 
 the third that has passed this year, and the object of the 
 landlord of the ferry-house on each side is to detain 
 instead of advancing the passenger, and where, when at 
 last it is seen that they can carry it on no longer, the only 
 machinery for putting the vehicle on board consists of 
 dozens of lazy and very awkward Highlanders, all scolding 
 in Erse, who almost lift it and throw it into the groaning 
 boat. 
 
 Broadford, Skye, Zd SeiJtemher 1841, Night. — The 
 first six or so of the twelve miles to this are a con- 
 tinuance of the same striking mountain scenery. There 
 is a still worse ascent immediately after leaving this side 
 of the ferr}^ It is a worse road, rises as high, or nearly 
 BO, and is in one place steeper, altogether more formidable. 
 We hired two leaders for it, and without them, our making 
 it out would have been very doubtful. So far as we have 
 gone, these two hills and the ascent up Glencoe (which how- 
 ever we came down) are the only three places where there 
 can be any pretence for putting more than two horses to 
 a light chariot with six people, besides the driver, and all 
 their indispensable luggage. 
 
 The last six miles next this open and descend into a 
 commonplace pastoral country. But (observe this hut) 
 there is from that descent a good view of the landlocked 
 sea ending with this Bay of Broadford, and bounded on 
 all sides, except round its upper end, with good stern 
 hills. This (the upper) end or head of the bay, is flat 
 and mean. But all below is beautiful. Perfectly treeless, 
 hard looking, and bare, but still capable of all the beauty 
 that a bright sun can bestow on calm water, and on silent 
 massive hills. The day has provpd excellent. 
 
1 16 CIR C UIT JO URNE \ S. 
 
 I thoiiglit Broadlbrd had been a town, — not a toon, but 
 a real town or respectable village. But I find that it con- 
 sists of three houses, the inn, the school, and " the shop,'' 
 near which there are a dozen or two of hovels, not standing 
 together, however, so as to form even a toon, but scattered 
 at distances, and all so like the black moss they stand on 
 that till we came up to the holes which are termed the 
 doors, and saw the ragged human rabbits looking out of 
 the warren, we did not take them to be houses. 
 
 As soon as we arrived, I called on Mr. Mackinnon of 
 (or on) Corry, who lives half a mile from the inn, and with 
 whom I had been in correspondence about getting to 
 Coruisk, etc. He had expected the whole party to have 
 gone and taken up their quarters at his house, but the 
 word "^ow" used in his letters, and "/" by me in mine, 
 produced a misunderstanding which gave him only me 
 individually, and this only to dinner. However, the 
 badness of this inn, which is only not just so bad as Shiel 
 House, and therefore might have had so much the less fun, 
 joined to Corry hospitality, have made us resolve to be his 
 guests from and after to-morrow morning. 
 
 Meanwhile I go to bed at the inn, anxious about 
 to-morrow, and much moved for a poor cat, which has been 
 mewing incessantly in some undiscoverable recess of the 
 parlour here, but which we have satisfied . the people has 
 been lately built up under the floor. If so, they say it 
 must have been there two days. I have vowed to have it 
 out to-morrow. 
 
 CoiiRY, neaj' Bradford, Sunday, 5th September 1841, 
 Night. — Well ! I have seen the Spar Cave, part of the 
 Cuillin Hills, and Coruisk, the two last the objects of all 
 this travel. 
 
 But let me proceed regularly. The cat gave up mewing 
 
NOR TH CIR C UIT^A UTUMN 1841. 117 
 
 as soon as we gave up talking or moving, and was as 
 silent as we were all night. But no sooner did I begin to 
 stir yesterday at six in the morning than it renewed its 
 supplications, though in a much weaker voice. I broke up 
 the skirting of the floor, but this would not do, and the 
 carpenter who was repairing the house had not arrived. 
 So I was obliged to leave it a little longer in durance, bnt 
 left proper injunctions. On coming home in the evening 
 I learned that the carpenter had never come, and that the 
 mason was averse to touch wood. The general opinion of 
 the household was, that though no doubt it was the best 
 cat in the house, it should be left to die, because why 
 did it go in ? and could they be expected to lift the 
 carpet which had been just nailed down. The cook alone 
 was tender-hearted, and talked of the " puir cratur," and 
 ^' how would we like to want our own meals," and " what 
 a smell it would make in the room if it died," and besides 
 they should consider "the feelings of the leddy." The 
 smell was the only thing that seemed to make any impres- 
 sion. But still, had it not been for Mrs. Cockburn and 
 our servant Robert, death by starvation w^ould have been 
 its fate. They got a bit of the precious carpet removed 
 and a board raised, when out jumped pussy, and made the 
 best of its way from that floor, and I find to-day that it is 
 quite well after its three days' abstinence. 
 
 Now for Coruisk. And as it, and the way of getting 
 at it, are little known, let me be particular. Corry is the 
 best guide to it in the world, and T did as he directed, for 
 he could not go himself. 
 
 Frank and I breakfasted yesterday morning a little after 
 six, and left this in our own carriage at seven, with cloaks 
 and a basket of provisions, and drove about five miles, in 
 a south-westerly direction, past the old kirk of Strath, 
 and till the road stopped at the sea. It is a good road, and. 
 
118 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 it is impossible for a person who sets off upon it, and goes 
 on, to avoid reaching the sea. It is necessary to have a 
 boat bespoke there, for there is no village, and no proper 
 boat can be got upon chance. The minister, who lives 
 (but not in the manse, for there is none) close by, can 
 always provide one if properly applied to, but a better 
 way is to engage a boat and four men from Broadford, and 
 to cart the boat across the five miles if necessary. Corry 
 did this for me, so I found my bark and my crew waiting 
 for me. I sent back the carriage, with directions to return 
 to the same place at six in the evening. 
 
 So we got on board, and set off from that place (I never 
 heard its name), which is at the head of Loch Slapin. 
 It was a strong, clumsy fishing-boat, with no mast, sail, or 
 rudder. The crew consisted of three men and a boy — only 
 one of whom spoke English. The boy rowed as well as 
 any of the men, and they were all civil and merry. 
 
 The day was perfect and the sea like glass. They said 
 that the distance to be rowed was 16 miles going and 
 16 coming; but I should think 14 nearer the truth. 
 The course lay down Loch Slapin and up Loch Scavaig, 
 these two being adjoining lochs, separated by one pro- 
 montory. 
 
 We coasted down along the wed side of Slapin, a space 
 of about seven miles, rarely 100 yards, and often not so 
 many feet, from the shore, over water so clear that we 
 often fancied we saw the monsters of the deep. The hills 
 bounding the loch are not striking, either in their height or 
 forms. But the more distant eminences, blended as they 
 were, were beautiful, and would have been so even with- 
 out the aid of the islands, which, however, very powerfully 
 contributed to the composition of the scene. But in truth 
 it was difficult to withdraw one's eyes from the objects 
 that were close at hand. The whole shore alons which 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1841. 119 
 
 we were passing is lined by a perpendicular, though not 
 an absolutely continuous wall of rock^ into which the sea 
 has eaten by washing off the soil till it has formed a 
 barrier against its own further encroachments. It was 
 low tide, yet the water was deep enough for the boat to 
 sail close up to the rock, so that there is no beach. With- 
 out quarrying and smoothing no bathing-machine could 
 work on, all the seven miles along the west side of Slapin. 
 except at one place near the upper end. The line of rock 
 varies in its height, from 20 to apparently 200 feet. The 
 average, I should think, must be about 100 feet. The 
 rock is all laid in horizontal laminae, and is separated 
 vertically into detached pieces at almost every 50 or 100 
 feet or oftener, so that it is not an unbroken wall, but a 
 long series of detached and horizontally laminated masses, 
 cut into all sorts of forms, from great solid lumps to tall 
 pillars, and worn into all sorts of curious appearances. The 
 fissures between the cliffs are often cleared out entirely so as 
 to leave no roof, but in other places a roof is often preserved, 
 or in other words a cave is formed, and into every crevice 
 the fresh sea entered and laved the pebbly bottom and the 
 clean sides. Even in the interstices and on the tops of the 
 fantastic rock, such is the general severity of the storm 
 or the want of soil, that there is scarcely any vegetation, 
 in so much that the rowers stopped to point out a crack 
 in which a single ash had attempted to root itself, for which 
 it is now bleached nearly white. It is all strangely worn 
 rock, which, though at last the employment becomes idle, 
 it is impossible to give up observing and wondering at.^ 
 
 We passed close by the Spar Cave, which I did not 
 
 know we were to do, and so yielded to the rowers, wdio 
 
 seemed to think it ominous that any stranger should pass 
 
 their wonder without entering. Not thinking of this as 
 
 1 Journals vol. i. 299. 
 
1 20 CIR CUJT JO URNE YS. 
 
 a part of the day's work, we had brought no lights, and 
 had to send for candles to a house not far off, but which 
 I never saw. We wasted an hour on this piece of non- 
 sense. It is not worth describing; even MacCulloch, who 
 saw it when its stalactites were unbroken, thought it in- 
 significant. Now that not one remains, the whole charm, 
 which was in its sparriness, is gone, for in its mere dimen- 
 sions it is nothing. There is no dirt in it, I mean no 
 mud, but it is very wet, a pool of about thirty feet has to 
 be crossed on a Celt's back, a steep and slippery inclined 
 plane of about 40 feet has to be scrambled up on one 
 side, and down on another, a feat requiring skill even from 
 the guide ; and after all this splashing and straining, and 
 wetting of hands and feet, there is nothing Avhatever, 
 absolutely nothing, to be seen. The only way to deal with 
 it would be to shut it up for a century or two, and let 
 the dropping reconstruct the white figures, which alone 
 can ever give it any interest. At present the only reward 
 for going in consists in the pleasure of getting out. And 
 indeed I suspect that even in its best days, tlie outer 
 entrance Avas always the finest part of the show. It con- 
 sists of a fissure between two rocks, which, were it not 
 open to the sky, would have made a cave worth entering. 
 I paced it as well as I could, and it seemed to me to be 
 about 500 or 600 feet in from the sea, that is, in depth; 
 about 40 wide, and about 150 or 200 high; each side 
 being of solid rock, and either quite perpendicular or 
 leaning inward, and every tide brightens its sea-weed and 
 channelly floor. 
 
 But my thoughts were of Coruisk, which is pronounced 
 here Coriii.s/ik. So we proceeded and were now near the 
 point which we had to double in order to get into Scavaig. 
 
 Ever since we reached Kyle Rhea, we had been excited 
 by glimpses of the summits of Cuchullin, and were so in 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1S41. 121 
 
 Slapin this very morning. At last, after rounding that 
 point, at the distance of about seven or eight miles, across 
 a sheet of calm bright water, the Cuillin Hills stood before 
 us ! — seen from their bases to their tops — some of their 
 pinnacles veiled in thin vapour, but most of them in the 
 light of a brilliant meridian sun. I gazed in admiration, 
 and could not for a long time withdraw myself from the 
 contemplation of that singular assemblage of mountainous 
 forms. 
 
 The Cuillin range extends to eight or ten miles, but the 
 portion before me was not probably above from two to 
 three. But I am told it is the best portion, and may 
 safely be taken for the whole. I had two full hours to 
 observe them during our approach, which lay iq} and across 
 Scavaig ; but indeed, their features and characters may be 
 apprehended in a very few minutes. Black, steep, hard, 
 and splintered, they seem to stand amphitheatrically, and 
 rising from the very level of the sea, their irony and 
 shivered tops stream up to the height, MacCuUoch says, of 
 3000 feet (but I suspect that this is too much), and are 
 fixed in every variety of peak, and precipice, and ridge, 
 and pillar, made more curiously picturesque by forms so 
 fantastic, that were it not for their position and their 
 obvious hardness, it might almost be supposed that they 
 were artificial. 
 
 There was a considerable shower as we advanced, and 
 the whole scene was wrapped up. I began to fear, but it 
 cleared away in a quarter of an hour, and confidence 
 returned with the sun. 
 
 On looking round, I found new ground for admiration. 
 Loch Scavaig, in the middle of which we were, I saw to be 
 one of the finest sea bays I had ever beheld. The eastern 
 side is bounded by a hill, which till it actually reaches the 
 Cuillin, is low and pastoral, and the grass (such as it is) 
 
1 22 CIRCUIT JO URNE K9. 
 
 comes down to the shore, the belt of rock I have sp(jken 
 of ceasing at the point of Slapin. But on the opposite 
 or wpptern side, the whole shore was lined with the same 
 stern barrier as Slapin, above which the mountains rose 
 high, and hard, and sharp, till they too fell into the Cuillin 
 range. Towards the north end the loch is enclosed by 
 these Cuillin mountains. The southern, and far wdder end, 
 is locked in by several islands; of which Eigg, Rum, and 
 Soa are the largest, and these, and the projecting pro- 
 montories of the mainland of Skye, group most beautifully. 
 I was particularly struck with E-um, which I don't recollect 
 having heard praised for its shapes. But it is very striking, 
 both in itself, and as a i3art of the general landscape. It 
 is not equal, or nearly equal, to Arran, either in height or 
 in form ; but it is the only island I have yet seen that 
 can justly remind us of that one. The beauty that shone 
 over all these objects was the beauty of mere light and 
 form : for there was little visible veEretation, not one 
 tree, no verdure, no apparent house, no ruin, no sound. 
 But the positions and the forms of the objects were admir- 
 able, and a depth of interest was impressed upon the whole 
 circle around me, by its universal hardness and sterility^ 
 which no softening could have increased. 
 
 So we went on, till, almost palpitating with anxiety, 
 we were landed on a rock at the head of the loch. I found 
 an oar lying in some heather, and on looking round saw 
 a boat seemingly deserted, on the beach, and eight barrels 
 at a little distance. These, I learned, were the still un- 
 gathered store of a poor fisherman, who was drowned three 
 days before, in trying to cross the stream which flows out 
 of Coruisk, when it was in flood. 
 
 The level of Coruisk is not, I should suppose, more 
 than from 30 to 50 feet above that of the sea \ and the 
 fresh loch is not above half a mile from the salt one. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1S41. 12?, 
 
 The space between them requires scrambling, for it is 
 rocky and boggy. I bade the boatmen remain with the 
 boat, to rest and refresh themselves, and went forward, 
 and in a few minutes stood on the side of Coruisk. 
 
 I was foolish enough, considering what I knew, to feel 
 a moment's disappointment at the smallness of the cupful 
 of water. But it was only for a moment. And then I 
 stood entranced by the scene before me. Subsequent 
 examination and reflection were necessary for the details, 
 but its general character was understood and felt at once. 
 The sunless darkness of the water, the precipitousness of 
 the two sides and of the upper end, the hardness of their 
 material, consisting almost entirely of large plates of 
 smooth rock, from which all turf, if there ever was any, 
 has been torn by the torrents; the dark pinnacles, the 
 silence, deepened rather than diminished by the sound of a 
 solitary stream, — above all, the solitude, — inspired a feel- 
 ing of awe rather than of solemnity. No mind can resist 
 this impression. Every prospect and every object is 
 excluded, except what are held within that short and 
 narrow valley ; and within that there is nothing except 
 the little loch, towered over by the high and grisly forms 
 of these storm-defying and man-despising mountains. 
 
 On withdrawing one's mind from the passive impression 
 of this singular piece of savage wildness, and looking to 
 particulars, I could not help being certain that the lake 
 was not three miles long, which some state it to be, and 
 I doubt if it reach even to two. MacCuUoch's test, of 
 the time he took to walk round it is quite fallacious, 
 because the walking strip, extending to about 100 yards 
 in breadth, between the water and the hills, is covered 
 with large rocks and bits of bog, and getting over these 
 (for it is not walking) is difficult and precarious. How- 
 ever, he may be right, for the largenes>s of the hills makes 
 
124 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 the water seem smaller. Besides two or three specks — 
 just showing themselves above the water, — there are three 
 islands, seemingly about a quarter of an acre in size, all 
 low and covered with shrubs, heather, or stunted grass. 
 The lake lies from north-west to south-east, wliich I 
 mention because MacCulloch's description is somewhat 
 confused by his calling its direction from east to west. 
 Each of the hills seems to consist of one stone. They are 
 not rocky mountains, but mountainous rocks. Hence the 
 sharpness into which they have been cut, and hence the 
 large plates, or rather fields, of smooth stone which the 
 two sides exhibit. I need scarcely say that there is no 
 path, no grazing, no human symptom. When it rains the 
 sides must stream with water. But the surfaces are so 
 steep that it soon runs off, and when I was there, there 
 was not a rill either to be heard or seen; except one, which 
 ran down an open grassy slope on the east side of the 
 lake towards the lower end. The hills enclosing the upper 
 end may, on being examined, be found to be not at all 
 semicircular, or to have any approach to that form, but 
 as seen either from the sea or Coruisk, they seemed to be 
 curved inwards, and part of the seclusion of the place 
 appeared to be owing to their doing so.^ 
 
 Some things are stated which misled me, because they 
 are not correct. It is not the fact that the loch is set in a 
 frame of actually perpendicular rock, like a wall, and that 
 hence it has never been approached by even a shepherd's 
 foot except from the sea. The hills may, in one sense, be 
 called walls, and they are very steep. But they are not 
 perpendicular, and have no ivall-like appearance. They are 
 not steeper than the turfy hills forming the left bank of 
 the River Awe, on which I saw sheep browsing very com- 
 fortably last September. It is the hardness, not their 
 steepness that makes the access difficult. Yet, hard though 
 ^Jovrnals, vol. i. 303. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1841. 125 
 
 they be, I thought I saw places where even I could have 
 found my way out; and Mackinnon assures me that the 
 shepherds find their way in by the hills, whenever it is 
 necessary. At the open and grassy slope a horseman 
 might trot both up and down, at least in so far as steep- 
 ness is concerned. 
 
 Then it is said that there is no vegetable life. Scott 
 won't admit either mosses or heathbells. This may be fair 
 enough in a fancy piece, but it is bad in a portrait. There 
 is abundance both of mosses and of heather. I picked up 
 about a dozen of the ordinary wild-flowers of Scotch hills 
 and valleys. The sweet gale or bog myrtle is in profusion ; 
 MacCulloch makes the islands shine "with the brightness of 
 emeralds." This, to be sure, is on the flat, but even on the 
 " solid wall," as MacCulloch calls the steep hills, there are 
 thousands of fissures, and generally where there is a 
 fissure there is accumulated rubbish, and where this is 
 there will be vegetable life, and so there is here. There 
 are also hollows on the islands. 
 
 These exaggerations are unnecessary for this place; 
 enough of stern sterility and of calm defiance remains. 
 
 After lingering over the solitude for above an hour, it 
 being now three, and other four hours rowing before us, 
 I withdrew from a scene which far less than an hour was 
 sufficient to comprehend, and which once comprehended, 
 there was no danger of forgetting. So turning backwards 
 and descending, a few steps, what had given me Coruisk, 
 deprived me of it — suddenly and utterly, — and we pro- 
 ceeded, homeward bound. 
 
 As our bark receded from the shore, the Cuillins stood 
 out again, and the increased brilliancy of the sun cast a 
 thousand lights over Scavaig, and over all its associated 
 islands, and promontories, and bays. The eastern side of 
 everything was dark, Avhile the opposite sides shone more 
 
126 CIR C UI T JO URNE YS. 
 
 intensely in front of the evening sun. One horn of the 
 curved Cuillins, though quite clear, seemed almost black, 
 while the opposite horn was blazing. The dark side of 
 Rum was towards me, but its outlines, like all the other 
 shaded summits, were made distinct by the glow behind 
 them. And as far as the eye could reach, bright spots, 
 especially light-touched rocks, attracted it ; and almost the 
 whole line of wall by which the eastern shores of every- 
 thing but Scavaig were barriered was gleaming in the 
 distance. It was a glorious scene. 
 
 I should feel it as a sort of sacrilege to prefer, or even 
 to compare anything to the Firth of Clyde. But one 
 great difference between the sources of its beauty and 
 that of Scavaig was forcibly impressed upon me. How 
 much does Clyde owe to human association, to culture, to 
 seats, to villages, to towns, to vessels ! The peculiarity of 
 the interest in Scavaig arose from the total absence of all 
 human interference. The scene would have been the same 
 had man not existed. 
 
 As we sailed close by the shore of Scavaig and near 
 the point of Slapin, the rowers stopped to point out five 
 huts. It was there, they said, that the drowned fisherman 
 had lived, and where his remains were lying, preparatory 
 to their being interred in a burying-place (not a church- 
 yard) about two miles off, next day. I thought of Steenie, 
 and felt as if I were ashamed of enjoying an evening 
 which was probably closing so bitterly over these poor 
 hovels. 
 
 On coasting along Slapin again we found the many 
 herds of nice, clean, free goats we had shouted to in the 
 morning almost all in the same nooks. And I was even 
 more satisfied than before, that if the people would but 
 examine the innumerable openings in that line of rock, 
 instead of one spar cave, they would probably find several. 
 
lYOR TH CIR C Ul T—A Ul VMN 1 84 1 . 1 27 
 
 We landed at half-past six, and found the carriage 
 waiting. 
 
 The only error of this day's work, but it was a material 
 one, consisted in my mode of returning. I ought to have 
 been directed to go from Coruisk up Glen Sligachan, and 
 to have slept at Sligachan, 9 miles from Coruisk and 
 16 from Broadford. This could have been done either 
 by walking the nine miles, or by getting a pony sent to a 
 j)lace occupied by a Mr. Macmillan, near Coruisk, and the 
 carriage should have met me at Sligachan. The walk or 
 ride down the glen would have shown me the whole of the 
 Cuillins. Mackinnon (called Corry here) says he did not 
 advise this, because after what I did see, the rest is 
 immaterial. But he was clearly wrong. 
 
 Anotlier mistake was in not letting me knov,- till this 
 forenoon, when it was near church-time, that there was a 
 view from the high, but very accessible hill hard by, of 
 almost all Skye. A "red Lord," as it seems the Skye 
 Erse calls the Justiciary Judges, would not abstain from 
 church in so small and noticing a place, but I was told I 
 could ascend after it came out ; and when it did come 
 out — being three — I had no time. So I lost my view. 
 
 We Saxons went in to the English part of the service, 
 which closed with Gaelic prayer and psalmody. I never 
 saw a more respectable country congregation. There were 
 about 350 present, all except Corry's party in the humblest 
 rank. The men had almost all strong blue fishermen's 
 jackets. The women, with only one exception, so far as I 
 could observe, had all on red tartan cloaks or shawls and 
 clean mutches of snowy whiteness, with borders of many 
 plies. I can't comprehend how such purity can come out 
 of such smoky hovels. There was not one child or very 
 young person. This was perhaps the reason that there 
 was no beauty. The reverse. One old woman, however, 
 
128 CIRC UIT JO UKNE YS. 
 
 reminded me of the late Mrs. Murray of Henderland. 
 Some of them had Avaiked eight miles, and some sailed 
 three. 
 
 The cat is well. 
 
 JEA.N Town, Ross-shire, Uh September 1841, Mondmj 
 Night. — We left our kind entertainer at Corry this 
 morning. He was coming here on business, and Frank 
 went with him in his yawl. 
 
 Our route was to Kyle Akin, nine miles, where we 
 crossed again into the mainland of Scotland. 
 
 The inn at this Kyle seems excellent, and the Kyle 
 itself is beautiful. I mean its position, placed as it is at 
 the junction of Loch Carron and Loch Alsh, and not far 
 from the opening into Loch Alsh of Loch Duich ; made 
 respectable by the old fragment of Castle Muel or Maoil, 
 and gay by fishing-boats. It was intended, it seems, to 
 have been a small metropolis, but like other over-grand 
 building plans, has stuck at about a dozen of two-storied 
 houses. The ferry is ill provided with a boat and machinery 
 for carriages, but hands, and the hope of whisky, did the 
 business, though certainly their knocks and jolts, if 
 survived, are the coachmaker's triumph. 
 
 We said farewell to Skye from one of the heights on 
 this side. We had seen little of it, but quite enough to 
 give us an idea of the whole. The sun, if the wind keeps 
 quiet, makes anything pleasing. We have seen this island 
 rose coloured. But its prevailing state is marked by 
 features that cannot be mistaken. The cold, cheerless 
 rocks, the treeless desolation, the perpetual tendency of 
 the clouds to rest, as if it was their home, on the tops of 
 the hills, the great corries into which the weather has 
 hollowed one side of most of the mountains, the utter want 
 of natural verdure, the grey, benty colour of the always 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1841. 129 
 
 drenched pasture, the absence of villages and of all 
 human appearance, — these things mark Skye as the asylum 
 of dreariness. The value of black cattle and sheep has 
 no effect in landscape. The tempest seems to have said 
 to an island of cloud-attracting mountains, standing on 
 the north-west of Scotland, surrounded and everywhere 
 pierced by a fierce sea. Thou art my brother ! and every- 
 thing we behold attests their cordiality. To one who 
 visits it for such purposes as mine it is only redeemed by 
 Cuillin and Coruisk, by the projecting of its promontories, 
 the receding of its bays, and the varying intermixture of 
 its Scalpas, and Rums, and Eiggs, and Cannas : its Loch 
 Eisharts and Loch Snizorts, and Loch Follarts ; its Sounds 
 of Raasay and of Rona, and the whole host of things and of 
 forms which go to make up its strange composition. 
 
 The stage to Strome Ferry (12 miles) is very hilly, 
 and few of the hills have much to recommend them. But 
 it was a beautiful drive, because much of it lay along 
 Loch Alsh and Loch Carron. Wood returned to us, and 
 the day has been fine. 
 
 Strome Ferry is like the rest — picturesque — (and for this 
 the worse conducted the better) and as well managed as 
 mere hands, without proper boats, piers, or any apparatus, 
 can ever manage a ferry. When our ferrymen were 
 loitering on the south side, it was curious to hear them 
 excited to activity by the mail-horn on the other. I had 
 forgot in these solitudes that there was a post. 
 
 The road from Strome to Jean Town (six miles) runs 
 along the shore of Loch Carron, which was glittering 
 under a serene sun. 
 
 We had been told that the inn here was very superior. 
 But it is just a good bad inn. 
 
 KiNLOCHEWE, ii'p^er end. of LocH Maree, Tuesday, 7tJi 
 I 
 
1 30 CIR CUI T JO URNE YS. 
 
 Septemher 1841, Niriht. — And I have now got a glimpse of 
 Loch Maree, the last new object I wished particularly to 
 see. But being as yet only a glimpse, I shall say nothing 
 about it. 
 
 We came from Jean Town this morning to Craig Inn — 
 10 miles, — a mere feeding-place, though with one room 
 styled the parlour. But it has been one of the peaceful 
 bright days, in which there is a parlour on the top of every 
 wall, and by every burn-side. 
 
 Our next step was — other 10 miles — to Auchnasheen, 
 bad even for horses, for not choosing to stop at Luib, 
 which being only seven miles from Craig, made a bad 
 division of the way, we had to bring oats from Craig with 
 us. 
 
 Here (Auchnasheen) I discovered that all my informa- 
 tion about reaching Maree was wrong. As there was no 
 stopping there (at Auchnasheen, I mean), and the opening 
 of the new inn here (Maree or Kinlochewe) was uncertain, 
 I had been advised to go to Auchanault (10 miles) for 
 the night, and to proceed next morning from that place 
 to this, which was said to be only about 10 miles — to see 
 this loch — and to return there at night. Now it was 
 found on inquiry that the new inn here was not open, 
 that the distance from Auchanault to this was about 
 20 miles, that to sail down oven the half of this loch, 
 which as yet is the only way of seeing it, would take four 
 hours, and consequently that doing all this in one day was 
 impossible. I therefore sent the ladies to Auchanault 
 for the night, and finding a return two-horsed phaeton 
 going to Dingwall, Frank and I got into it and came here. 
 
 And I am glad that we did not attempt to bring the 
 carriage to this place, for the road down Dochart, though 
 new and hard enough, is more narrow, steep, and danger- 
 ous than any new road I have seen, in so much that a 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1841. 131 
 
 carriage could scarcely have been got either up or down. 
 The inn, moreover, as it is called, is the most deplorable I 
 have ever been within, worse by far than either Letter- 
 finlay or Shiel House. No party of ladies could put up 
 here. As to the new inn, which is to be opened next 
 week, besides giving up the best of it on lease to a shooter, 
 it is very small, and has a fiat comjjosition roof A com- 
 position roof in the wilds of Ross-shire ! 
 
 We engaged a boat for to-morrow morning. While our 
 hideous dinner was preparing, I walked to the top of a 
 hill, and had a good sight of the loch. 
 
 Gakve, 8/^ September 1841, Wednesday Night. — It has 
 been a beautiful grey day, perfectly still, mild, and with 
 the full measure of the light that is consistent with the 
 absence of positive sunshine, a steady, pensive day. 
 
 Frank and I breakfasted at six, took the phaeton to the 
 boat, two miles off, and were on board and the oars in 
 action by seven. We sailed down among and a little past 
 the islands, one of which we ascended ; and re-landed after 
 being above four hours on the water. After this, and the 
 two views I had of it yesterday, one from the road and 
 one from the hill, I think I have a good general notion of 
 the loch. 
 
 I have heard it called the Loch Lomond of the north, 
 and an intelligent person who unites a knowledge of art 
 to an intimate acquaintance with Maree, told me before I 
 left Edinburgh, that the truest idea he could give me of it 
 was, that it contained about six miles of Trossachs. This 
 is all nonsense. 
 
 It is a noble lake, both in its splendid sheet of water, 
 and in the great, black, sentinel mountains that guard it. 
 
 Certainly about 16 or 18 miles long, it is said to be 
 not wider at any part than three, but this width its 
 
1 32 CIR C UIT JO URNE YS, 
 
 apparent openness about the middle would make me doubt. 
 I think it must be more there. 
 
 Except at one part it is lined by a range of lofty hills 
 on both sides, but particularly on the northern margin, 
 which in every respect is far the finer of the two. All 
 these hills are stony and black. Besides those close on 
 the edge of the lake, every opening discloses others at a 
 distance, striking both in form and in dimension. Not 
 one of them is spiculated, in which feature one of the poorest 
 Cuillins would laugh them all to scorn. But there are 
 some conical and some saddlebacked, and indeed in all 
 forms ; except that they all avoid lumpishness, the greatest 
 opprobrium of hills. The chief are Ben Lair and Sleugach, 
 both on the northern side. Ben Lair, I believe, is the 
 highest ; and MacCulloch, who ascended it, gives a striking 
 description of the prospect with which it rewards him who 
 has the sense to mount it, as what hill ever fails to do % 
 And, had I never been at Tyndrnm, I would have agreed 
 with him, that "the effect of Sleugach, seen from its base 
 to its summit, is perhaps more striking than that of any 
 mountain in Scotland." Its top is like what had once 
 been a cone, crushed down into something more solid, and 
 its obvious hardness attests the storms it encounters and 
 defies. 
 
 The part where these respectable hills are not, is for 
 about five miles towards the centre of the southern side of 
 the water. This space is low, stupid, and insignificant ; 
 being occupied by a long, dull sort of a tongue, lining the 
 loch, and ending in a large flattish peninsular promontory, 
 out of which the water in some geological yesterday has 
 plainly cut the islands, which are sometimes foolishly 
 described as the glory of Maree. 
 
 For these islands are the worst things in it. One of 
 them is beautifully wooded, and being the one farthest 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1841. 133 
 
 out into the centre of the loch, is a very prominent object. 
 Its verdure, and that of the very few patches of wood that 
 are to be met with along the water's edge, show what 
 might be done. But except it, all the other islands are 
 bare, or worse than bare, their squalidness marked by 
 a few old stunted Scotch firs, of from 3 to 10 feet high, 
 beneath, or rather beside which, there is tall but scraggy 
 heather, and wet bog. Then the whole twenty-four, or 
 so, of them are set so close, that though it be possible to 
 sail between them, they might as well for the landscape be 
 all joined, or all covered by the Avater. Without height, 
 for not one of them is 50 feet high, or wood, or rock, or 
 ruin, and so huddled together that there is no gleam of 
 water between them, it is the poorest of fresh-water 
 archipelagos. To have seen the Trossachs or Loch 
 Lomond, and to talk of these ! 
 
 So that the peculiar features of Maree are its long 
 extent of water, and its near and remote ranges of great 
 mountains, the remote ones rather suggested than seen. 
 Except that, I suppose, there are salmon in both, it is 
 absurd to speak of it as resembling any part of Loch 
 Lomond or Loch Katrine. Its want of wooded islands 
 and wooded hillsides settles the matter as to Loch 
 Katrine. It has no narrow gullied part like the upper 
 strip of Loch Lomond; and its broader expanse wants 
 all the delicious foliasie which so softens the marcfins and 
 the islets of that beautiful lake. 
 
 What the effect of human familiarity might be, it is not 
 easy to predict. An inn, or even a house, or perhaps even 
 a sheep, would extinguish Coruisk ; and a mail-coach 
 horn heard along the side of Maree, or a steamer panting 
 and grunting over its surface, with crowds of happy and 
 giggling ladies and gentlemen, would certainly make an 
 odds on that water. But at present, the belief that it is 
 
134 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 little known, and the certainty that whether known or 
 not, it is beyond the intercourse of common tourists, gives 
 it that irresistible interest which remoteness and silence 
 can alone confer. 
 
 We saw to-day one single house on the north side, 
 inhabited by " an Englishman," which I observe that the 
 Highlanders always think description enough for the whole 
 of these foreigners. It is their Linnaean term for a class. 
 Besides this, we could detect no house, and not six turf 
 hovels. There was no smoke, no sheep's bleat, no colley's 
 bark, no sail. The only sounds we heard were the call of 
 two fishermen returning tired from the east coast, and of 
 two persons something like gentlemen, who seemed to be 
 laired in the heather, who wanted to be taken to the 
 opposite end from that to which we were going. Not 
 above two rills w^hispered down the precipices. All was 
 stillness and solitude. 
 
 And there stood the black mountains looking at the 
 water. The deer possess the land. It is all rock, — not 
 the gigantic flags of unbroken rock that inlay the sides of 
 Coruisk, but the ordinary fragments that refer themselves 
 to the mountain mass they have fallen from. It is wood- 
 less, ploughless, and nearly heatherless and grassless, — a 
 region of stone. It seems as if the genius of sterility had 
 sometimes left Skye and sat down upon the top of 
 Ben Lair. 
 
 The infrequency of society may, nay, certainly will, 
 cease, and it is possible that hundreds of nooks on this, 
 and on all our lochs may be gay with human habitation 
 and happiness. But the physical aspect of Maree will 
 continue— a long lake — roughened by an unusual number 
 of steep promontories, lined by dark mountains, that will 
 ever command the more admiration the more they are 
 known, presided over, when left to nature, by sublime 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1841. 135 
 
 silence ; and to be enriched by its islands, only when these 
 shall follow the example of the solitary emerald into which 
 one of them has been converted. 
 
 We found the phaeton waiting for us at the water-side, 
 and left Maree about twelve, and were here by about five. 
 The loch is not above nine miles from Auchnasheen. 
 
 Two things make these nine miles very remarkable. 
 
 Suppose you are going from Auchnasheen to Kinlochewe. 
 Well ! You pass a poor idiot of a four-mile loch, called 
 Rosck, or Eosque, with nothing but insipidity in its face 
 or dress. After this the road rises very considerably. 
 All up this ascent, but particularly towards its height, 
 there is a grand view of a range of monsters of hills, 
 which I was told were about the head of Loch Torridon. 
 I know few such mountain prospects. And one peculiarity 
 in them arises from their being made of quartz. They 
 are whitish, not white, but whitish, pepper and salt, with 
 a great preponderance of the salt. There is a grand one 
 near Kinlochewe called, I think, Ben Eaye. It is literally 
 powdered with its own dust. Except from snow I never 
 saw a whitish hill before. 
 
 The road then descends rapidly into Glendochart. And 
 at a sudden turn, about three miles from Kinlochewe, 
 almost the whole of Maree lies stretched out before you. 
 Neither the hill I mounted, nor my sail, gave me a better 
 view of it than these three miles did. In truth if you 
 only wish to see its general features, either of land or of 
 water, stop at that turn for an hour and go back. 
 
 Bog Eoy, Alehouse, ux miles from Inverness, ^ili Sep- 
 tember 1841, Thursday, 1 p.m. — Disturbed all last night at 
 Garve by a company of jovial, i.e. drunken, fishermen, who 
 chose to sing, and dance, and yell, in spite of all entreaties, 
 remonstrances, and threats to be quiet. Lord ! How they 
 kicked the floor and howled I 
 
1 36 CIR C UI T JO URNE VS. 
 
 We were glad to escape that otherwise not uncomfort- 
 able inn this morning at seven, and breakfasted at 
 Dingwall. And we are now at this decent little place, 
 giving our steeds their last feed. 
 
 We have now crossed the southern end of Ross-shire, 
 from Strome, I may say, to Inverness, It is a drive worth 
 any one's taking. The inns are all comfortable, and as to 
 roads, though there have been about four severe unavoid- 
 able ascents, we have not come upon one bad quarter of a 
 mile since we left home ; and all the Government roads 
 are uniformly admirable. 
 
 The country from Jean Town eastward has some lochs, 
 and rivers, and hills, but they are not sufficient to save 
 the most of it, till we reach Contin, from the character of 
 uninteresting dreariness ; except in the eye of a grouse- 
 shooter and fisher, or of one who, like me, thinks there is 
 something bordering on sublimity in mere solitary vastness 
 of surface. There are shooting-boxes all along the road, 
 generally ill-placed. Mackenzie's of Scatwell is by far 
 the best, both well-placed and hanrlsome. 
 
 The change from wildness to civilisation is completed in 
 a few miles after leaving Garve. The region of wheat 
 succeeds that of heather instantaneously. And when this 
 region begins, the justice of all that is said in praise of 
 the richness of Easter Ross cannot be denied. It is a 
 half-Highland country, beautifully cultivated, still improv- 
 ing, well wooded, and adorned by many good seats. 
 
 We passed, but only passed, Kilmorack and its falls, and 
 my time did not permit of our going out of our way for 
 the Drem. 
 
 If Dingwall was in its ordinary state, it must be an 
 excellent place for sleeping a life away in. The whole 
 royal burgh was as still as if not awake. Anderson says 
 it has nothing to boast of except the cross and the pillar 
 
NOR TH CIR C UIT—A UTUMN 1 84 1 . 137 
 
 to the memory of the Cromarties. No boast in either. 
 But has it not to boast of the following epitaph, which I 
 found in the churchyard on " William Potter, Shipmaster," 
 who departed this life only in the year 1830? 
 
 Loud Boreas' blasts, on ocean's waves, 
 
 Oft has tost me too and fro ; 
 But God's decree, you plainly see, 
 
 Has harboured me below. 
 
 While here I safe at anchor ride, 
 
 With many of our fleet, 
 Untill that day we anchor weigh. 
 
 Our Admiral Christ to meet. 
 
 Very meritorious tomb poetry for 1830. 
 
 We stopped and disgusted ourselves by going into the 
 ruin of the Priory of Beauly. The poor building has little 
 in itself to recommend it. But it has something. It has 
 old windows, and other obvious marks of an ancient 
 ecclesiastical edifice. But it has a deeper interest in its 
 position and its history. Six hundred years plead for its 
 protection, in which they are powerfully supported by 
 the sacredncss of ancient and the tenderness of recent 
 sepulture. Yet a spot more absolutely abandoned to 
 abomination never disgraced a community. Eubbish, 
 nettles, and that filth so dear to Sawney, have there their 
 triumph over decency. The very bones of the modern 
 dead, allowed to be exposed, are not spared. Yet the 
 guide-books tell us of the famous Frasers, and Chisholms, 
 and Mackenzies, etc., who repose within these odious 
 precincts. The Lady of Sir Francis Mackenzie of Gair- 
 loch was buried in one of the aisles within these few 
 years. I saw the same or even worse brutality at Dingwall. 
 It is owing chiefly to inveterate bad habit and to the 
 want of good example, but partly to the nature of 
 Calvinism, at least of Scotch Calvinism, which holds 
 
1 88 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 spirit to be everything and matter nothing. The Scotch 
 despise, if they do not even abhor, ornamented churches ; 
 because the devotion of the place is all that they respect, 
 and they waste none of their reverence on stone and 
 timber. They have neither the consecration of religion 
 nor of affection for churchyards. Any field will do. 
 Because provided the soul be safe, why misapply a sigh 
 over the dust it animates no more % Accordingly there 
 are probably not now one hundred modern tombs in all 
 Scotland that are even decent ; not fifty that are much 
 above mere decency, and not twenty or even a dozen that 
 are beautiful and beautifully kept ; and these almost 
 wholly among the Episcopalians. We are a pious and 
 affectionate people, no doubt, but if I were required to 
 produce the tribe of men most regardless of their dead, I 
 would turn to my countrymen. 
 
 Forres, \1ili September 1841, Sunday Night. — All since 
 we reached Inverness is hackneyed. I shall therefore 
 make the log very short. 
 
 We got there on Thursday the 9th. Dined that day with 
 our cousin William Fraser, at Laggors Cottage. Moncreiff 
 had arrived at Inverness with his spouse, a son, a daughter, 
 a manservant, and (horrible !) a lady's-maid. It is but 
 justice to record the merit of my wife, daughters, and all 
 my Circuit companions in this respect. They have never 
 afflicted me with the monster called a lady's-maid. She 
 is no joint of my tail. For the which, God be praised ! 
 
 The criminal business was over in one forenoon. 
 
 On the 10th we had our Circuit trumpet-ton gued 
 dinner. 
 
 On Friday the 11th, Moncreiff began the trial of a civil 
 cause. I sat with him some hours, and then, being 
 useless, went and dined at Ness Castle with Lady Saltoun. 
 
NOR TH CIR C UIT—A UTUMN 1 84 1 . 139 
 
 This day we went to church. A metaphysical roaring 
 sermon. 
 
 The civil case is not done, and Moncreiff is obliged to 
 stop for it. I have come on here. 
 
 A delicious day. 
 
 Inverury, Tuesday, lUh September 1841, 2 p.m. — Left 
 Forres yesterday morning and breakfasted at Elgin. 
 Visited the Cathedral. John Shanks (see p. 15) is dead. 
 
 From Elgin we went to Arndilly, 15 miles, where we 
 stayed two hours. Then to Keith, 1 2 miles ; then to Park, 
 12 more. 
 
 We were very kindly received by our friends the 
 Gordons, with whom we dined and stayed all night. 
 
 We left them this morning at eight, and have come 
 here by Huntly (which is 13 miles from Park). And 
 as we were here by one, and four is the hour for meeting 
 the Magistrates, we have had to wait here one hour, and 
 have another to wait ; which my companions will keep up 
 for ever against me, as one of the ten thousand proofs of 
 my impatience ; but for which they say that they might 
 have slept in peace two hours more at Park. But, say I, 
 where would you have been if you had broken a wheel, or 
 even lost a shoe? Never shave close with the Bailies. 
 
 I ought to have mentioned before that the Tories have 
 come into power since we left home, and that their first 
 fruit appeared at Inverness, in the form of Adam Urquhart 
 as Advocate-Depute. He had no commission, and there 
 was no evidence that his principal, Sir William Rae, had 
 been sworn in. But Moncreiff and I had no difficulty in 
 appointing him valeat quantwn. 
 
 Castleton, Braemar, Friday, 11 th September 1841, 
 Night. — I processed into Aberdeen in vast pomp, on the 
 14th. Moncreiff joined us there in the evening. 
 
140 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 Next day (15tli) we both processed, under the charge 
 of the 7 1 st Eegiment, to Court ; where we remained till 
 near six, when we had a grand judicial festival, — the most 
 numerous, it was said, that had ever been seen in that place. 
 On the following morning, after a re-procession and some 
 more very stupid cases, we all dined (ladies and all) at a 
 Mr. Crombie's, a bailie ; who, on a few hours' notice, had 
 collected enough to make a party of twenty-one to dinner, 
 and of about thirty-five to dance and sup in the evening. 
 He lives in one of the large, excellent old houses, entering 
 by a close, and containing a more spacious lobby, staircase, 
 dining-room, and drawing-room than any house in the 
 New Town of Edinburgh. We were all very merry, and 
 the worthy host did one of the duties of hospitality with 
 great effect, not merely by precept, but by example. 
 
 Aberdeen is improving rapidly in public taste, and King 
 Street, a creation within these five or six years, is really 
 beautiful ; and Marischal College, though covered, I ha,ve 
 no doubt, with defects, in the eye of correct architecture, 
 is a wonderful production for such a place. Their granite 
 wrought as they now work it, is, when fresh, not much, if 
 at all, inferior to marble; but modern Aberdeen shows 
 that it never can be polished sufficiently for houses to 
 preserve its brightness long. They have a manufactory 
 for polishing and shaping it for slabs, pillars, chimney- 
 pieces, vases, urns, and such things, which produces articles 
 far more beautiful than could be made out of most marbles ; 
 but houses can never aff'ord to be polished like these. 
 
 I made a remonstrance about the cross, which stands 
 in Castle Street, by far the finest thing of the kind in 
 Scotland, but from which the cheek of a queen, the horn 
 of a unicorn, and half the head of a horse, have been 
 chipped since I was last there. The apology was that the 
 hustings were always erected close beside it, and that it 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1841. 141 
 
 generally suffered at elections. Pax excellent reason for 
 holding the elections elsewhere. However, I was told 
 that it was to be removed (being its second change of site) 
 to nearer the top of the street, in a few weeks : when it 
 was also to be repaired and cleaned, and to have its 
 arches, which are at present closed, reopened, and windows 
 put into them, so as to convert it into a shop, and then 
 to be all protected by an iron fence. I hope that these 
 intentions may be adhered to, but Town Councils and 
 taste rarely draw together. 
 
 AVe left Aberdeen this morning, breakfasted at Banchory, 
 and were here by six in the evening. 
 
 The whole of this district — from Aberdeen to Perth 
 by Braemar — is new to me. I have wished to go by it a 
 hundred times, but have never made it out till now. And 
 I have got it done in the most favourable possible day ; 
 sunny, calm, mild. 
 
 We have come about 60 miles, and the wliole of this 
 long strath merits all the admiration it generally receives. 
 It is beautiful. 
 
 In their /oym.5 the hi.Hs are defective, scarcely a ravine; 
 except about Invercauld, very little rock ; and not one 
 peak or pinnacle — all heavy monotonous masses. Their 
 size and quantity, however, make them very respectable, 
 and they fully perform their main duty of enclosing the 
 valley. The whole valley is far less narrow, ridgy, and 
 picturesque than I had supposed. In truth it is only 
 after passing Ballater, about 42 miles up, and getting 
 into the higher region of Invercauld, that the really 
 Highland character of the landscape begins. But nothing 
 can exceed the beauty of all this lower portion of the 
 strath. The lateral country is never once let in, so that 
 the seclusion of the proper strath is always preserved. 
 And while considerable portions of the low ground, and 
 
142 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 almost all the visible high, are richly furnished with 
 excellent Scotch fir, and with birch which Loch Ness alone 
 can equal, the valley is constantly brightened by finely 
 cultivated haughs, comfortable cottages, seats, and the best 
 villages that Scotland can boast of. It is this profusion 
 of wild culture that forms the true charm of the whole 
 district, the brilliancy of the yellow grain, set off against 
 the dark pine, and interspersed by the comfortable habita- 
 tions of those who work, as well as of those who own, the 
 soil ; while the Dee, after it is once got to, gleams in its 
 long, distant reaches, and sweeps past with great purity 
 and little turbulence, presenting a constant succession of 
 delightful pictures. And after these withdraw and leave 
 the mountains to deal with Invercauld, or rather with 
 Braemar, as they please, the scenery becomes strictly 
 Highland, and the great masses of wood distinguish it from 
 most of our Highland scenes. 
 
 The villages of Banchory, Ballater, and Castleton 
 (including both sides of the Cluny) are not surpassed in 
 position, comfort, or rural beauty, by any that I can at 
 present recollect, and they are all remarkable in their 
 openness, the separation of their houses, and the free 
 ground within and around them. I wish I could have 
 got up to see the old Castle of Crathes more nearly. I 
 did go up to Aboyne, saddened by bankruptcy, the 
 windows boarded up, the furniture sold, the axe ringing 
 in every wood, and the whole place desolate. Abergeldie 
 is beautiful, and Balmoral (at least it sounded like this) still 
 more so. They have both preserved the picturesque style 
 of building which so eminently distinguishes Aberdeenshire 
 above any other Scotch county, and their positions are 
 admirable. Indeed I do not recollect where I have seen 
 any place that struck me more than Balmoral. And the 
 strange mass constituting Braemar Castle, closes the 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT—AUTUMN 1841. 143 
 
 upper end of the valley by a striking and solitary 
 edifice. 
 
 On the whole, it has been a most agreeable day. There 
 is no such way of passing a day. If any man wants to 
 be happy, I advise him to get a public allowance for 
 travelling, to cast out any devil by which he may be 
 possessed, and then to get into the dickie of an open 
 carriage, with a suitable assortment of books and cloaks ; 
 an amiable, affectionate, sensible, and very quiet niece 
 beside him, and a wife, daughter, and son, with whom he 
 is on good terms, behind ; and to drive 60 miles through 
 a new and beautiful country, in a sweet and bright autumn 
 day. 
 
 The sun never did his duty better than he did to-day, 
 including his whole career, from his dispersing an alarm- 
 ing-looking fog in the morning, to his sinking in gorgeous 
 splendour behind these Braemar hills in the evening. 
 
 Castleton, Saturclay Morning, 18th Septemher 1841. — 
 I have been down looking at Braemar Castle. I am not 
 architect or antiquary enough to be able to determine 
 whether it be ancient, or what may be called modern. But 
 if I were its owner, I would remove the wall round it, 
 which is loopholed for musketry, and all the other modern 
 symptoms about it, and leave its tall solitary knoll-placed 
 form, with its five odd turrets, to tell its own tale. 
 
 This castle, and the two churches, give the village and 
 this upper end of the strath a respectable and striking 
 appearance. One of the churches is the Established parish 
 one, and on its side of the water stand the few stone and 
 slated houses composing Castleton proper. The other is 
 Catholic, twice the size of its rival, and on its side are 
 scattered the more humble and more numerous dwelling- 
 places of what is called Auchendyne. Each church is 
 
144 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 quite new, each beautifully set up on a platform overlook- 
 ing the valley, and between them flows the sparkling Cluny. 
 I know no countnj place in Scotland where the Papist 
 beards the Protestant so ostentatiously. Strange that 
 men can't go to heaven the same way, or let each other 
 take their own road in peace, to the same end. Here are 
 a few poor people of the same tongue, and tribe, and 
 pursuits, living in a remote and mountain-bounded spot, 
 which if they chose, might to them be the Happy Valley. 
 Yet religious differences, not nearly so clear, even to them- 
 selves, as the stream that divides them, and small though 
 it be, as easily passable by reason, separates them into 
 two sects, each of which thinks the other travelling to 
 hell, towards which neither would probably be averse 
 to give the other a push. 
 
 Another glorious day. 
 
 I ought to add before leaving this region, that the inns 
 of Banchory, Aboyne, Ballater, and Castleton, are all most 
 excellent for country inns. Nothing can be better. And 
 each, except Aboyne, keeps horses. Banchory is perfect. 
 
 Perth, 20 /A Se;ptemher 1841, Night, Monday. — We left 
 Castleton after breakfast, and went to the Spittal of 
 Glenshee, and from that to Kindrogan, where we remained 
 from Saturday forenoon till this morning, when we came 
 here. 
 
 There is much to be enjoyed, though little to be 
 described, between Castleton and Kindrogan. Huge 
 clumsy mountains, merely made for the muirfowl grouse, 
 and prairies. But bulk and loneliness suggest awe, and 
 therefore inspire pleasure. Sheep and turf are rapidly 
 encroaching on heather and muirfowl. There is no better 
 pasture on any Highland hills. 
 
 The houstiliold of Kindrosran was kind and honest. No 
 
NOR TH CIR C UIT—A UTUAIN 1 84 1 . 1 45 
 
 hospitality could be greater. This is one of the virtues 
 that is very easily capable of being made disagreeable. 
 Nothing saves it except simplicity, consideration of others, 
 and frank sincerity. Let a friendly stranger go to Kin- 
 drogan and be reasonable, and he will know what true 
 hospitality is. 
 
 The 30 miles from Kindrogan to Perth are the last 
 stage of the descent from the mountain to the plain, and 
 wheat and hedges furnish no subjects for a tourist. But 
 I must notice Craighall, a second Hawthornden. I very 
 reluctantly passed that singular place with no other know- 
 ledge of it than what passing it can give. But this was 
 enough to make me doubt its comfortableness as a residence. 
 No flat ground. 
 
 Kinross, Friday Nirjlit, 2ith September 1841. — The 
 Perth business has occupied us four days. Not one case 
 of the slightest interest, except to the culprits. Assaults, 
 which are on the increase, formed very nearly a fourth of 
 the whole. We left that place to-night about six, and 
 after sleeping here, our plan is to go and breakfast 
 to-morrow at the Tower of Tulliebole. 
 
 And I cannot part in the meantime with the owner of 
 that tower (as I understand it to be, for I have never 
 seen it), without recording my love of the man, and my 
 admiration of him as a judge. I have had another Circuit's 
 experience of MoncreifF, and have again not only acted 
 with him in public, but been privy to all his private 
 official feelings and views ; and I am confirmed in the 
 conclusion forced upon me by forty years' friendship, that 
 there cannot possibly be a better man, or a more pure, 
 honest, anxious, or high-minded judge. With no superi- 
 ority of talent, and a great inferiority of general knowledge, 
 little taste, and no fancy, a look and manner far from 
 
1 46 CIR CUITJO URNE VS. 
 
 commanding, and a very bad voice ; no one ever overcame 
 such defects by so few excellences. But two things, and 
 only two — his force of reasoning and his virtue — make 
 him very powerful, both as an object of affection and of 
 fear. Nothing can withstand the concentrated energy of 
 his logic, and that man must have a very hard, or a very 
 thoughtless heart, who does not reverence his goodness. 
 I differ from his system of addressing prisoners — as a 
 uniform system, — but when he falls in with a proper 
 subject and a proper occasion, his tone and sentiments do 
 honour to the Bench, and bring upon it the grateful esteem 
 of all right-minded hearers. Simple, pious, and warm- 
 hearted, a superior being, exhorting and encouraging a 
 guilty but still reclaimable creature of this lower world, 
 could scarcely impress the scene with a deeper feeling of 
 reverence and of kindness. With some peculiarities to 
 amuse his friends, who occasionally smile at the very 
 intensity of his honesty, and the seriousness of his zeal, 
 few men have so much solid excellence to secure their 
 respect and esteem. 
 
 I am delighted to learn that Perth, like Edinburgh, as 
 appears from the recent census, has increased very little, 
 if at all, in population during the last ten years. Almost 
 all the material additions to the number of the people have 
 been in towns, where it has chiefly been an addition of 
 precariously fed manufacturers, who are constantly making 
 others tremble for the effects of their seditions of the belly. 
 It is comfortable to have a few Goshens, a few spots where 
 taste, and intellect, and peace can enjoy themselves in 
 their old way, undisturbed by steam-engines, mobs, and 
 upstart temporary wealth. I scarcely know a more singular 
 fact, than that the people of Glasgow, Avho with plenty 
 better things to boast of, are proudest of that very excess 
 of population under which they fret and groan, were very 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1S41. 147 
 
 angry that the statute ordered the late census to be 
 taken on a Sunday, because this excluded many of their 
 inhabitants who went regularly out of town that day. 
 The Sheriff, I am told (the Historian of Europe as he is 
 termed), actually issued a sort of official recommendation 
 to the natives, either to stay at home that day, or, though 
 really absent, to return themselves (contrary to the Act) as 
 if present. This Glasgow zeal is not for truth, but for 
 Glasgow. As if the best thing that could happen to them 
 would not be to have a hundred thousand fewer. 
 
 BoNALY, Saturday Night, 25th Septtmher 1841. — We 
 did not get to Tulliebole. It rained too heavily for us to 
 go seven miles out of our way in an open carriage, merely 
 to sit wet to breakfast. But though it was cruel, I forgive 
 the rain, because it was the only umbrella shower we had 
 since leaving Shiel House upon the morning of the 3d. 
 So we came straight home, after exactly four weeks' absence 
 this very day. 
 
 My book has been Combe's Notes on America ; that is, 
 Notes of his recent travels in America, by George Combe, 
 Writer to the Signet, and now the Apostle of Phrenology, 
 an excellent book by a most excellent man. Deducting 
 his unhappy science (as he calls it), he sees everything 
 clearly and fairly, and in a right spirit. His candour, 
 even on his own subject, never forsakes him, and his 
 benevolence never cools. And a zest is given to every 
 part of his diary, and of his proceedings, by his honest 
 phrenological credulity. He can see nothing except 
 through phrenological spectacles. He is now in Germany, 
 where he means to lecture in the native language ; and in 
 a land where thousands have faith in animal magnetism, 
 and where mysticism and craze seem to be indigenous, 
 lecturing on phrenology, he cannot fail. He is well suited 
 
148 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 for the apostlesliip of a new and absurd sect, zealous, 
 calm, and unobtrusive, benevolent, modest, and as unpre- 
 tending as is consistent with a firm conviction that, 
 Spurzheim being gone, he himself is the head of the 
 phrenologists, and that all other philosophers are wrong. 
 Independently of his arguments there is great attraction 
 in his worth and simplicity. The very plainness of his 
 appearance and elocution, which have nothing beyond 
 perfect naturalness to recommend them, takes people in. 
 And no one who knows him can doubt his honesty. 
 What he believes may possibly be nonsense, but there can 
 be no question as to the belief being sincere. 
 
 And so ends the best Circuit expedition that was ever 
 performed ! 
 
NORTH CIECUIT. 
 
 Spring 1842. 
 
 Cupar- Angus, Monday Night, llth Ajjiil 1842. — North 
 again. And with Moncreiff. 
 
 Jane and I, and Helen Maitland, left Edinburgh this 
 morning at eight, and got here by Perth at about four. 
 It has been a beautiful dry transparent day. But I have 
 nothing to say of a route so common to me. 
 
 My object in coming this way has been to see Glamis, 
 which I have tried to see all my life in vain, and I doubt if 
 I shall be more successful now ; because I must meet the 
 Magistrates of Aberdeen to-morrow about four at the 
 Bridge of Dee, nearly seventy miles from this, which 
 admits of little delay for castle seeing. However, we shall 
 start early and try. Had it not been for two confounded 
 factors, I should have passed this evening at the village of 
 Glamis. But my friend John Dundas, who acts for the 
 Strathmore trustees, wrote to them to be sure to pay me 
 every attention, the consequence of which was that if I 
 had gone there to-day, instead of being let alone, and left to 
 loiter over the castle as I chose, I should have had to dine 
 with these two brothers, — excellent men both — one said to 
 make up for being only 22 years of age by being 25 
 stones in weight, — with probably some of the gentry " to 
 meet me " ; and copious bowls of hot whisky punch, 
 I am told, is the habit of the house, even in July 
 evenings. This hospitality I have had the barbarity to 
 
150 CIRCUIT JO UKNE YS, 
 
 avoid, even at the risk of not seeing the finest castle in 
 Scotland. 
 
 Was not there some flaw in the marriage of Helen Fell, 
 who put the following statement on the tombstone of the 
 person she calls her husband, and which I found in the 
 churchyard here % — 
 
 " Erected by Helen Fell, in memory of Donald Stewart, 
 lier hushand, who, after having lived ivith her in a married 
 life, departed this life the 10th June 1779." It must 
 only have been a marriage by cohabitation. At least it 
 has a left-handed appearance. 
 
 Aberdeen, 12th April 1842. — As I expected, we did 
 not see Glamis ; we got to its outside at eight A.M., which, 
 early though it was, left us by no fair calculation above 
 half an hour to spare for the inside, which is the real thing 
 to see. This half-hour was wasted in vain efforts, by 
 bells and knocking, to rouse any one to open the door and 
 show the castle. So we were obliged to move off, but had 
 the pleasure of seeing a woman standing to admit us 
 when we looked back from the first park gate. The 
 closed shutters showed that the factors were still asleep. 
 
 I don't think I shall ever see Glamis more ; for the 
 Strathmore approach to Aberdeen is so incomparably the 
 worst, that my present resolution is, never to repeat it. 
 Except to an agricultural and a fox-hunting eye, the whole 
 seventy miles or thereby, from Perth to Stonehaven, are 
 utterly uninteresting. The Castle of Glamis is the solitary 
 thing worth stopping to see ; though perhaps the abbey, 
 or whatever it is called, of Brechin, is not undeserving of 
 a look. 
 
 The day has again been splendid. 
 
 Moncreiff joined me at Stonehaven, and we processed 
 into Aberdeen grandly. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1842. 151 
 
 Fochabers, Saturday Mght, 1 6th April 1842. — We were 
 in Court in Aberdeen all Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, 
 the 13th, 14th, and 15th, and I was there to-day till 
 eleven, when I came away in order to get to Inverness 
 with as little of what is now called " Sabbath desecration," 
 which chiefly means travelling on Sunday, as possible. 
 I left MoncreifF yoked to a long case of fire-raising, by a 
 black-looking fellow called Rosenberg, a Prussian Jew, and 
 his wife, at one time an actress in London ; and got here 
 about six. 
 
 The only unusual bar scene at Aberdeen was in the 
 lifting in of a prisoner, the only one I ever saw so intro- 
 duced to be tried. She was an otherwise respectable 
 woman, who if she had not directly murdered her infant, 
 had caused its death by wilful neglect at bringing it into 
 the world. And remorse, as was said, had deprived her 
 of the use of her limbs, and prevented her from being 
 capable of being tried till her crime was three years old, 
 and she had become a truly pious woman. As it was 
 necessary to get quit of her case one way or other, she, 
 though not small, was lifted like a big child into Court, 
 in the arms of an herculean porter, who, after she had 
 pleaded guilty, and had been sentenced to a short im- 
 prisonment for the neglect, put his left arm under her as 
 a nurse does to a child, and (she steadying herself by 
 placing her right arm over his neck) carried her away. 
 
 The only person I ever saw absolutely and entirely 
 lifted into Court, was one Smith, who, because he chose 
 to work for less wages than they thought proper, Avas shot 
 by these scoundrels the cotton-spinners on the street, in 
 Glasgow, in open day. The ball shattered his spine, and 
 paralysed him all over, but left his mind unimpaired. He 
 was brought in as a witness, lying in bed, the bed (without 
 any posts or curtains) being laid on a flat wooden frame, and 
 
152 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 placed on the table of the Court. He was pale anrl emaciated, 
 with a fallen chin and feeble voice, but with a clear eye, 
 though obviously dying. I scarcely ever felt more than 
 when he lay before us, and raising up his thin hand, swore, 
 in answer to the absurd initiatory question, of which we 
 have only last year got quit, that he had no malice or ill- 
 will at the prisoner, to whom he owed the painful and 
 lingering death which closed his sufferings in a few days. 
 My client would have been hanged if the law had allowed 
 it, but unfortunately, the statute which makes shooting, 
 though not fatally, capital, had not then been extended to 
 Scotland. This miscreant had the merit of getting it 
 done.i 
 
 We had a premature sort of a villain at Aberdeen, an 
 advocate's clerk aged only nineteen, but who was old 
 enough to conceive and execute the sending of three 
 threatening letters, in order to extort money. They were 
 well-written and well-contrived letters for his purpose, for 
 each of them held out to a different person the certainty 
 of utter ruin, by having crimes imputed to them, if they 
 did not comply with his demands, which demands were 
 always made very slender, but if once yielded to, would of 
 course have risen. We cordially transported the heartless 
 dog for ten years. 
 
 We went to an evening party at Aberdeen. If their 
 usual society be, as I am told it is, in the same style with 
 any I have ever seen, they are a kindly, hospitable, 
 unceremonious, happy people. 
 
 Their cross has been removed further up the street, 
 a much better site, and has been cleaned, repaired, and 
 set all right ; the original stones have all been preserved 
 
 1 This case must have been soon before the date of the first statute. 
 The trial took place at Glasgow before Justice-Clerk Boyle. [Trial of 
 John Kean, 1825.] 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1842. 153 
 
 where they were broken, the broken ones have been 
 replaced, the carving has been dealt with in the same 
 way, and in short it is the old cross, only in a better 
 place. Very well done. 
 
 The great present defect of the town is the want of 
 a tolerable access to the pier. They should take down 
 the houses which now close in Castle Street at its upper 
 end, and make a street from that down to it. It would 
 be well worth doing, were it only for the sake of letting 
 people get an easier walk to the pier, which carries them 
 further out into a blue and stormy sea than any pier in 
 Scotland. 
 
 Marischal College is finished. If they do not succeed in 
 getting the front of it cleared, they have been wasting 
 their money. And even though they do, the building 
 will be poor, and the attempt to maintain two Univer- 
 sities in such a place absurd. " For you must know, Mr. 
 Speaker," as somebody said a few years ago in the House 
 of Commons, " that England has two Universities, and so 
 has Aberdeen." They should have given up the one in 
 the town and made the old, venerable, well -placed, 
 academic-looking King's College the single seat of their 
 science. It is in vain to speak of anything so reasonable 
 to either of these two parties, each of whom would rather 
 see its favourite establishment, and science besides, extin- 
 guished than yield to the other. But their folly ought to 
 have been disregarded. 
 
 It is the fashion to abuse Aberdeenshire, but our drive 
 here to-day, through its large, reclaimed, well-cultivated, 
 and well-walled fields, was very pleasing. It is the beauty 
 of utility, the rejoicing of the desert. There is more of the 
 blossoming of the rose in Strathmore, but there they have 
 a far better soil and climate, and have had more time. 
 Theirs is the rose of nature. In Aberdeenshire it is the 
 
1 54 CIR CUIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 rose of art. And it is art laid out purely in subduing the 
 appalling obstacles to their conquest over the soil. No 
 towns, few villages, no stack of any manufactory, nothing 
 but agriculture, which, besides its own proper triumph, has 
 produced regions of surface, of which the purity and order, 
 especially in this weedless season, when the clean line of 
 every harrow is visible and the only herbage yet green is 
 that of the cultivated seeds, delights the eye of taste. 
 
 The inn here is excellent. And if the village had been 
 less regular, and less obviously withdrawn in its structure 
 from the will of the people, it would have been better. 
 But the truth is that during the lives of the two last 
 dukes, — a period probably of sixty years — it was neither 
 meant nor used as a village for villagers, but as a kennel 
 for the retired lacqueys and ladies'-maids of the castle, 
 and for the natural children and pensioned mistresses of 
 the noble family, with a due proportion of factors, game- 
 keepers, and all the other adherents of such establishments 
 as their two Graces and their household rejoiced in. 
 
 Inverness, Monday Morning, IStJi April 1842. — We 
 came here last night, having had some difficulty in steering 
 through the various parishes, so as to escape the people 
 going into or coming out of church. But, on the whole, 
 though I have no doubt that a judge travelling on Sunday, 
 even though it was absolutely necessary, will be publicly 
 denounced by some reverend zealots, we contrived to make 
 it as little offensive as possible. Moncreiff, however, is in a 
 worse plight, for his case of Rosenberg, which began on 
 Saturday morning at nine, was not over till yesterday 
 forenoon at twelve. He could not adjourn till Monday, 
 because as the Circuit Court was to be held here to-day, 
 and can only be held in one place at once, it w^ould have 
 been illegal. It is diverting that this desecration should 
 have fallen to the lot of Moncreiff, a deeply religious man, 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1842. 155 
 
 a known anti-desecrator, a strict observer of Sunday, and 
 an acting elder in Candlish's church. If it had been me 
 or any other ordinarily pious man, we would have been 
 excommunicated to a certainty. And probably they would 
 perform this operation even on Moncreiff, if they were to 
 detect that after getting out of Court, breakfasting, taking 
 a walk and a nap, he dined out, and only got home about 
 twelve at nio;ht. His fire-raisers were convicted. 
 
 Our drive here to-day was delightful, for the sky was 
 still blue, and the air milky. And old Lithgow is 
 right in calling this eastern district of Morayshire "the 
 pleasant planure of the north." The road frequently 
 winds through wood, where it did not require much fancy 
 to make us suppose that we actually saw the larches 
 greening themselves as we passed them, and it was difficult 
 to say whether the glorious edging of the bright burnished 
 whin, apparently exulting in having its roots cherished 
 by the warm sand, gave more delight to us or to the bees. 
 The coast of Ross-shire, seen across the serene blue sea, 
 appeared as if it were beside us, with its rocks, and crevices, 
 and sutors ; Fort George glittered on the point of its 
 promontory; as we advanced up the Moray Firth, new 
 objects attracted the eye and the heart, for all the people 
 were enjoying the scene in the evening of their day of 
 well-clad rest. Ben Wy vis presided over all, the long level 
 ridge of his summit sparkling in the purest snow, the idle 
 boats lay on the shore, two vessels vainly courted air 
 enough to move them towards Inverness, which, backed 
 by its singular group of picturesque eminences, reposed 
 peacefully at the head of the Firth. 
 
 Of course I took Helen to the Cathedral of Elgin. 
 The Bishop's House is still standing, and they say it 
 is to be allowed to remain. I was sorry to find one 
 grave marked by an insignificant flat stone containing 
 only the four words ''John Shanks, Shoemaker, Elgin." 
 
15fi CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 So patient and successful an Old Mortality deserved a 
 fuller epitaph, and I said something to induce the Elginites 
 to give him one. He, as well as Wren, may tell the 
 stranger who asks where his monument is, to look round. 
 But not far from John's dust we found the following 
 excellent specimen of sycophanc}^ over the ashes of Mr. 
 Hoy, a decent man, the best part of whose life was spent 
 in performing the part of Macwheeble to the family of 
 Gordon. 
 
 Here Lietli 
 
 The Body of 
 
 JAMES HOY 
 
 More than 46 years 
 
 Secretary at Gordon Castle 
 
 During which time 
 
 He enjoyed the confidence and friendship 
 
 Of two Noble Dukes and two Dutchesses 
 
 Of the iUustrious House of Gordon. 
 
 He departed this life on the 19th Deer., 
 
 In the year of our Lord 1827, aged 80 years. 
 
 Departed in that constant hope of trust 
 
 To rest eternally among the just ; 
 
 To live and die well was his whole endeavour ; 
 
 And in assurance died to live for ever. 
 
 He was — but words are wanting to say what, 
 Say what a Christian should be, — he was that. 
 
 Few men lived better certainly, for he dined at Gordon 
 Castle every day. And it is pleasing to think that the 
 friendship of noble dukes and duchesses can give such 
 consolation in death, and such glory after it. 
 
 We stopped to look at the Forres pillar, and after 
 walking through that nice old country town, which was 
 so silent that I was afraid my solitary step might dis- 
 turb the people in church, I played with the Findhorn 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1842. 157 
 
 at its beautiful suspension bridge, from whicli the view of 
 the town is very striking. 
 
 We went to the Frasers, at Laggan, four miles beyond 
 Inverness, without stopping, and, having dispensed with 
 the procession, crept into town quietly at ten at night. 
 Yet I have been told that my friend Dr. Clark has been 
 composing abuse against the two judges for desecration. 
 It is a pity that I shall be out of the place before he can 
 get an opportunity of letting it off. 
 
 Bridge of Tilt, Wednesday Night, 20th April 1842. — 
 I was in Court two days at Inverness. There were two 
 cases of fire-raising, in which each of the culprits was a 
 boy considerably under twenty ; not an ordinary juvenile 
 offence. One was acquitted. The other was convicted 
 and transported for seven years. He was about nineteen, 
 and went into a barn, one end of which was used as a 
 dwelling-house by two fisher-girls. He attempted to use 
 liberties with them, on which they turned him out. Stung 
 with what he called the " insult," he swore that he would 
 not sleep till he had burned the house over their heads. 
 He was as good as his word, for, returning that night about 
 twelve, he stove in the door, and took peats from the fire 
 with which he kindled a mass of straw that was in the 
 opposite end of the place, and made dust and ashes of the 
 whole concern in a few minutes. This, I presume, was 
 his first adventure in love. 
 
 The weather was perfect during these two days, and my 
 due feet did not fail, as they never do, to go morning and 
 evening about half a mile up the left bank of the river — 
 one of the most beautiful of walks, more so, perhaps, than 
 even the North Inch of Perth. However these two places 
 may settle it between themselves, there can be no such 
 competition between them and any other towns in Britain. 
 
158 CIRCUI'J ' JO URNE YS. 
 
 Though we left Inverness this morning at six, we did 
 not reach tliis till half-past seven in the evening, a long 
 while for about eighty miles. But we stopped to break- 
 fast at Aviemore, and there is a good deal of hill on the 
 road. And I wish it had taken us double the time. For 
 what a tract ! And what a day ! Calm, bright, warm, 
 silent. The snow of last winter still whitened the corries 
 of the mountains, while all their exposed sides and 
 heads were free; the little patches of hamlet farms in the 
 valley, having been spared their usual rain for about a 
 month, were clean and in good order, and the waters 
 sparkled in their purest blue. But it is the solitude of this 
 magnificent strath that awes and delights, — the deep and 
 long solitude. I do not know any other so long tract, 
 fairly within the reach and the daily use of civilised man 
 in this island, which is so utterly unobtruded upon by the 
 appearances or the sounds of art or population. 
 
 The firs that I mentioned four years ago have done 
 the job. They have very greatly obstructed the western 
 prospect from the high part of the road, for some miles after 
 leaving Inverness. 
 
 This is an excellent inn, a very excellent one, small, 
 nice, and well placed. It is to be hoped that its vicinity 
 to its brother at Blair will be a check upon each ; but it 
 is somewhat absurd to have two hostels, on a lonely road, 
 within three hundred yards of each other. This is one of 
 the effects of the ridiculous rivalship that used to subsist 
 between the houses of Athole and Lude. Each laird 
 built his inn, and his village ; and Lude consoled itself for 
 Athole's getting the church by Lude getting the poor bit 
 of an Episcopal chapel, which stands in the field below 
 the mansion-house. 
 
 The Place of Blair used to be open to everybody. And 
 no wonder. For its only pleasure-ground is mountains, 
 and there is no town to make intrusion formidable. It 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1842. 159 
 
 was not easy indeed to be found by the late duke on his 
 domain, without getting not only welcome, but dinner. 
 Under his second son Lord Glenlyon, however, who, during 
 the insanity of his elder brother, is the acting duke, 
 strangers are warned off by threatening placards at every 
 corner. This is thoroughly Scotch. There are very few of 
 the owners of our great places who have sense or humanity 
 to make the enjoyment of their places by others a source 
 of enjoyment to themselves. They seem to think that 
 they get it best when they got it all, and frown at 
 every stranger as an enemy who does not do them due 
 homage if he walks in, not because the owner permits him, 
 but merely because the beauty of the spot invites him. 
 The proprietor of a place like Blair, which is composed of 
 solitary mountains, should be thankful for all human 
 intercourse. Glenlyon's placards should have announced 
 that every properly-behaved person who would enliven 
 the place by walking in it, should be rewarded by oat- 
 cake and whisky. I am aware of what is said about the 
 mischievousness of the Scotch. But nothing provokes 
 this vice, or rather habit, so much as our practice of stern 
 exclusion from everything beyond the line of the highway. 
 
 Perth, Thursday Night, 21st Apil 1842.— We left the 
 Bridge of Tilt at ten, and were here at half-past four. 
 
 The strath between Blair and Dunkeld could not have 
 been seen to greater advantage ; it was in the perfection of 
 its vernal beauty. The day has been delicious, — June-like. 
 The earth, the air, and the trees, were full of happy 
 animal life, lambs, insects, birds. Labour had withdrawn 
 from the flat, warm haughs, and had finally resigned its 
 seeds to the undisturbed nurture of the elements. How 
 softly the blue stream flowed through the valley. The 
 larches were everywhere covered with that delicate and 
 short-lived verdure, which makes that tree one of the best 
 
1 60 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 emblems of the Scottish spring. The planes, the first 
 forest trees that display their confidence in the departure 
 of winter, were bright with their rich gummy foliage. 
 And what a world of brown bursting buds were the limes, 
 the elms, and especially the birches, silently turning out 
 into leaves. The whole scene was worthy of Charles the 
 Fifth's praise of Florence, — that it was too beautiful to 
 be looked upon except on a holy-day. 
 
 But the most pleasing circumstance is the obvious 
 improvement of the human beings who inhabit what was 
 lately not the Happy Valley. I remember it one of the 
 most squalid regions in Scotland, with the duke's two 
 houses at its opposite ends, and mud hovels and beggary 
 between. It was an established Athole custom for the 
 children to run like savages for miles alongside of every 
 carriage, calling out for charity. The change that is 
 taking place is striking and satisfactory. The mud 
 tenements are disappearing every year ; respectable stone 
 houses, with their little gardens, are rising ; busy, civilised 
 villages are multiplying ; the schoolmaster is abroad with 
 the basin and the towel. So that we could scarcely 
 detect a very dirty face on any child throughout our 
 whole drive, nor were we assailed by a single beggar, 
 young or old.^ 
 
 Of these reformed villages, Pitlochry and Blair (includ- 
 ing the Bridge of Tilt) are the most important. They 
 exhibit too many symptoms of the determination of some 
 single owner to have his capital picturesque, in which 
 respect, though finer, they are less natural than Kingussie, 
 which is plainly done by the people themselves. But 
 time will correct this, by taking off the newness of the 
 more pretentious cities. By the way, I was struck with a 
 village somewhere near Elgin, called Lhanbryde, I think, 
 which T don't remember observing before. It is in the 
 1 Journcds, i. 317. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1842. 161 
 
 transition state towards a better condition, and if its 
 master, whoever he may be, shall adhere to the preserva 
 tion of the trees, and the scattering of the houses, I 
 predict favourably of Lhanbryde. 
 
 I called at Urrard, a most beautiful spot, and wished I 
 had only £1000 and two years time to dress it up. 
 
 Helen and I also went into the grounds of Dunkeld— 
 always odious ; because there is nothing to be seen beyond 
 what can be seen out of them, and because a walk there 
 is subjected to restraints which destroy the pleasure. I 
 had to get the landlord to send somewhere to ask leave 
 for me. This leave came in the form of a printed per- 
 mission, which was to be kept in the hand till a person 
 took it. The person took it at the gate. Then our names 
 had to be signed in a book at the lodge. And after all 
 this preparation, the heels of a guide, impatient for the 
 stranger's contribution to his wages, had to be followed 
 step by step, with a check and an instruction if the in- 
 dulged intruder deviated one inch from the showman's 
 wake. If I lived there as the owner, the sight of all the 
 people of Dunkeld in my grounds every day would only 
 enhance my enjoyment of them. 
 
 Perth, Sunday Night, 2ith April 1842. — Moncreiff 
 rejoined me here. We were in Court all Friday and 
 yesterday ; and this has been a well-spent day. For I 
 have been round the North Inch, I cannot tell how often ; 
 and on the top of Kinnoul Hill, and had a pleasant quiet 
 dinner of eight, and have enjoyed this rose of country 
 towns, from morning to night, from the dewy grass 
 before breakfast, to the serene moon at twelve at night, and 
 even processed to the East Church and heard a discourse 
 by Dr. Easdale, saturated with morphia. The day was 
 so warm that the windows were all open, and it was 
 
 L 
 
1 62 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 really delightful to see so many people asleep in so pure 
 an air. Of the 700 who I suppose might be present, 300 
 at least were in Elysium. Of the public authorities I 
 observed five elders, two sheriffs, three magistrates, and 
 one, judge, all under the gentle influence at once. I don't 
 recollect being here on a Sunday before, and hence I have 
 perhaps been the more impressed with the Calvinistic 
 grimness of the place, from its being so unlike what might 
 have been expected. I thought that the beauty which 
 God had given to it would have led all the truly pious 
 out to enjoy His works. But no ! I don't believe that 
 there have been 100 persons, and certainly not 200 on 
 the North Inch this whole day. It has been an utter 
 solitude, in the morning, between the two public services, 
 and even in the evening. It produces a very painful 
 feeling of the sourness of mind that can think such sullen- 
 ness against nature a duty. That plain of green velvet on 
 which the very sun seemed delighted to repose, edged by 
 the silver Tay, and surrounded by all the appearances of 
 vernal life in the finest condition ; bounded towards the 
 one end by distant blue mountains, some snow still linger- 
 ing on their loftier summits ; and towards the other, by 
 the beautiful bridge, and its comfortable little city, ought 
 to have been swarmed over by the young and the old, the 
 cheerful and the pensive, but especially by the pious, on 
 this their day of thought, from the morning to the evening 
 twilight. 
 
 But what can be expected % For since I came here, I 
 learn that even the extensive and comparatively secluded 
 grounds of Dunkeld, are now, for the first time, absolutely 
 shut against everybody — even the few and well-ordered in- 
 habitants of that quiet village — during the ic^iole of Sunday. 
 This is another of the already too many examples of 
 matters being so managed by what terms itself the religious 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1842. 163 
 
 world, that that large class, being the great majority of the 
 people, which will positively desecrate, as it is called, are 
 not allowed to do so in the purest and most intellectual 
 way, but are driven to find their recreation on the streets, 
 or in the pot-house. Fanatical masters and mistresses 
 are very apt to excuse their hatred of a smile upon the 
 Sunday, by ascribing their intolerance to consideration 
 for their servants, and I dare say that this exclusion of 
 the villagers of Dunkeld will be said to be for the purpose 
 of letting the guides go to church. But they surely need 
 not gloom in the church the wlioU Sunday, and though 
 they did, the visitors would be much the better, and the 
 grounds certainly not the worse of their absence. 
 
 BoNALY, Saturday, 30th April 1842. — We finished at 
 Perth yesterday about eleven in the forenoon, and were in 
 Edinburgh to dinner. 
 
 I never have been so much struck with the beauty of 
 Perth as during this the only M^eek I ever passed in it. 
 It requires nothing to make it perfect except a great old 
 building. The Cathedral of Glasgow, or the ruins of 
 Elgin, would give it all its wants, — the dignity imparted 
 by time, or by the palpable vestiges of history. It is 
 lamentable to hear some of its best citizens envying 
 Dundee for its trade; that is, for its steam-engines, its 
 precarious wealth, its starving, turbulent population, its 
 vulgar blackguardism. Long may their foolish eff'orts to 
 deepen the river fail, as they recently have done. We 
 must have manufacturing towns. But there is no necessity 
 for their being made out of the ruins of natural beauty, 
 or of retreats of academic learning. Who can doubt that 
 it would have been better for Scotland, and even for 
 Glasgow, if trade and the loom had been encouraged to 
 fasten their black clawt, on any other part of the Clyde, 
 
164 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 and had left Glasgow with its College, and its Cathedral, 
 its river, and its Green, alone. 
 
 I saw models of two plans for widening the bridge. 
 The one which proposes to raise additional arches for foot 
 passengers on each side, is clearly the best, but the doubt 
 is whether the piers on which these side arches must rest 
 be sufficiently strong to bear them. It is a very hand- 
 some bridge as it is, and it is to be hoped that the 
 authorities will not fall into the usual error of letting 
 everything depend on the ignorance of some local ass, 
 ambitious only of an opportunity of disgracing himself, 
 which he calls employment. 
 
 I saw my first 1842 swallow on the river, on the morn- 
 ing of Monday the 25th. 
 
 We had 84 cases, the greatest number, I am told, that 
 has ever been at any one Circuit town in Scotland, 
 except once at Glasgow, where there were 85. Most 
 of them were from the said enviable Dundee. There was 
 no capital sentence, and only one transportation for life. 
 Nor was there any case worth recording, — except one — 
 too horrid, however, to be mentioned. The dark roll was 
 filled with the ordinary, and scarcely varied repetition of 
 robberies, assaults, sheep and cattle stealing, fraud, con- 
 spiracy, forgery, fire-raising, night poaching, bigamy, and 
 above all of theft, which now forms fully a half of all the 
 criminal business of Scotland. There is certainly a fashion 
 in crimes. There was far less transportation than usual, 
 long imprisonments in the recently-opened penitentiary at 
 Perth being the substitute. 
 
 Moncreiff and I went and visited this establishment, 
 which, though only opened about a month ago, contains 
 already about 150 inmates. It is a very humane and well- 
 considered experiment. But except upon the young, I am 
 not sanguine of its success. They Vho are generally guilty 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1842. 165 
 
 from ignorance, are never to be despaired of, till the effect 
 of knowledge shall be tried ; the knowledge not merely 
 of reading and writing, and the rules of morality and 
 religion, but of a trade, and of the practical consequences 
 of misconduct. There is a considerable class too of other- 
 wise well-behaved people, who have got into a first scrape, 
 who if not corrupted in jail, will probably never get into 
 another. But with the true, regular, professional, middle- 
 aged criminal, who requires a change of nature — reforma- 
 tion — I don't expect much from comfortable living, though 
 in confinement, nor from steady occupation, even though 
 combined with considerable solitude. I fear that such 
 criminals must be given over, and that, after all, there is 
 nothing for it but to get rid of them by exportation. The 
 prison is in beautiful order. But like all other prisons, it 
 is far too small. The 400 cells, being all that are now 
 built, will be full next year. 
 
 Our business closed by the best Circuit address from 
 Moncreiff that I have ever heard on such an occasion. 
 It had no nonsense in it, and besides being judicious, was 
 benevolent, and ]3ractically useful. 
 
 During the whole Circuit we have not had one single 
 drop of rain, and scarcely even a cloud. 
 
 My book was Barnahj Eudge, a novel of which any 
 other author might be proud, but which is, perhaps, the 
 least admirable that Dickens has produced. But still it 
 is excellent. I must, however, except the hangman, who, 
 with his professional jokes, is disgusting and unnatural. 
 Scott, in his Quentin Dunmrd, has a couple of hangmen 
 too, and, in his Heart of Midlothian, he has a mob. And 
 in neither do I think that he suffers by the competition 
 even of Dickens. 
 
WEST CIRCUIT. 
 
 Autumn 1842. 
 
 Ardrossan, Friday, 9th September 1842, 7 A.M. — I left 
 Edinburgh on this West Circuit, on the morning of 
 Tuesday last, the 6th, with Maitland and Archibald 
 Davidson, the former of whom was going on a case to 
 Stirling, the latter to Dunira. Circuitising though I was, 
 I went to Falkirk by the railway, but then I had secured 
 the coujjS (I wish they had given us an English word for 
 it), which is a private carriage, and secures the learned 
 lord from contamination with witnesses, parties, jurors, 
 and the world. We got to Falkirk at 8 a.m., being 
 one hour from Edinburgh, posted to Stirling in an hour 
 and a half, breakfasted, and I was in Court at quarter-past 
 ten. 
 
 The business lasted two days. Commonplace cases. 
 The weather after five months of unbroken excellence, 
 Y/arm and dry, was moist and foggy. However, I per- 
 formed my pilgrimage through the streets and round 
 the castle before breakfast. The people are recovering 
 their quasi rights in the beautiful turf j^leasure-ground, 
 below, and to the south-west of the castle, of which the 
 Woods and Forests, from ignorance, lately deprived them. 
 These Commissioners put this ground, with all the green 
 and regular mounds which marked its ancient uses as a 
 place of royal and public pastime, into a farmer's lease, 
 and the plough had begun its devastation, when public 
 
 166 
 
WES T CIR C UI T—A UTUMN 1 842 . 167 
 
 clamour instructed the Commissioners, and they are now 
 in the course of getting their error corrected. 
 
 I observed two things, one was that the apex of a 
 modern (at least not an ancient) porch over the door of 
 Cowan's Hospital, covered one-half of the old square stone 
 which records the virtues of the founder John Cowane. 
 The other was that the two or three public wells are so 
 constructed, having only one spout each, that (as in the 
 High Street of Edinburgh since I remember) the poor 
 people are obliged to stand idle and shivering for hours 
 before they can get their vessels filled, to their great dis- 
 comfort, and not at all to the improvement of their manners 
 or morals. I counted above 200 tubs, pails, pitchers, etc., 
 ranged on the street, with the owners waiting their 
 turns from the solitary spouts. I told the provost that if 
 I was in his place, both of these evils should be remedied 
 in a month, the one at the pumps by simply multiplying 
 the spouts at the existing drawing-places. The answer 
 was that the porch was soon to be taken away for other 
 reasons, that the facility of putting a spout at each of the 
 four sides of a pillar, instead of only at one, had never 
 occurred to them, though they had often lamented the 
 people's delay, and that if it should be found to cost nothing 
 or very little, it would probably be done. 
 
 Maitland and I left Stirling at seven, breakfasted at 
 Cumbernauld, and were in Glasgow by eleven. At one, 
 my daughters, Jane and Elizabeth, and my old companion 
 Frank, joined us there, having left Edinburgh by the 
 railway at eleven. At half-past one we all left Glasgow 
 by the Ayr railway, and were here by three, where 
 Maitland's family has been living for some months. 
 
 Lord Mackenzie has gone to Inveraray, and we don't 
 begin at Glasgow till Thursday next, the 15th, and my 
 object in coming here is to get over to Arran, where I 
 
168 CIRCUIT JOURNE YS. 
 
 have never been, and to pass some clays in its solitudes. 
 But the window I am writing at looks across the water, 
 and Arran is invisible, the waves surly, and the air 
 showery. My contemptible stomach almost turns at the 
 look of it, and is not made steadier by the pitching of a 
 sloop a mile or two out. So my long desire to be in Glen 
 Sannox, or on the top of Goatfell, may probably not be 
 gratified to-day. 
 
 Ardrossan, Friday, 9th September 1842, 11 p.m. — It 
 was not. We went to the end of the pier here, and saw 
 the steamer set out, and she grunted and heaved so, that 
 I was thankful I was not in her. But then, as usual, she 
 probably landed by half-past eleven at Brodick, so it 
 would have been all over in an hour and a half, by which 
 time it turned out an excellent day. Still it was only 
 excellent for this side, for Arran was only seen like a 
 ghost, through mist, occasionally. But to-morrow ! 
 
 We took a carriage and went within a mile of Fairlie, 
 and then got out and walked about. 
 
 Fairlie is the best village of the wealthy in Scotland. 
 Excellent houses, capital gardens, umbrageous trees, the 
 glorious Clyde, backed by Arran and its dependencies 
 stretched out before them, a gravelly soil, and a mild 
 western climate. 
 
 On our way home we went up the high ground on the 
 left side of the road, in order to try if we could find out a 
 waterfall, of Avhich the minister gives a grand description 
 in his statistical account of the parish (old edition), but 
 which the parishioners, or such of them as we fell in with, 
 knew so little about, that none of them could say exactly 
 where it was. After a long and wettish scramble we at 
 last discovered the fall of Southannan. A poor affiur. 
 For the guidance of future travellers, I may mention that 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1S42. 169 
 
 it lies about a mile and a half on this side of Fairlie, and 
 about half a mile up the hill to the left. 
 
 Brodick Inn, Sunday Morning, 11th September 1842. — 
 Yesterday was so little bad that we resolved to tempt the 
 deep. But we lost Maitland, for just before embarking, a 
 letter from Mrs. Cockburn, who is in Edinburgh, announced 
 the death of her and Mrs. Maitland's only surviving 
 brother. The event was expected, and in his wretched 
 and incurable state of suffering not to be deplored. It 
 induced Maitland, however, to go to Edinburgh to give 
 directions, and made his wife stay behind. So Helen, 
 George, and James Maitland, Henry Davidson, my Eliza- 
 beth and Francis, and myself came here. 
 
 We left Ardrossan at ten. I took the precaution of 
 lying down flat on the deck and shutting my eyes, from 
 the very first moment of going on board till we reached 
 Brodick, with the effect, which I had experienced before, 
 of a total exemption from sickness. The voyage is about 
 an hour and a half long. 
 
 The clouds said Xo, to our question whether we 
 should ascend Goatfell. So George Maitland, H. 
 Davidson, and I proceeded and explored Glenrosie, the 
 outlet of which is within a mile of this, and the valley not 
 above three or four miles long. There is, fortunately, no 
 road, and the upper part is so stony and so cut into holes 
 by streams, that it makes rather a severe scramble. But 
 it is a valley well worth passing a day in. All gushing 
 with the clearest water tumbling over granite ; deep sides, 
 browned with chocolate-coloured autumn fern, many dark 
 rocky peaks, and the upper end enclosed by as striking 
 an assemblage of black and picturesque precipitous moun- 
 tain-tops as is often to be seen. 
 
 Not wishing to return the same way, we climbed to the 
 
1 70 CIR C UIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 top of the range which forms the left boundary of the 
 valley, and came home omr it instead of round it. It was 
 a tough pull, and took us apparently more than half up 
 Goatfell. The prospect was extensive, but there was too 
 much islandless sea. 
 
 On the way home Davidson and I went into Brodick 
 Castle, — a strong thing, with antiquity, site, and trees, 
 sufficient to have enabled its noble owner, if he had chosen 
 to spare a little of the gilding he has wasted on the 
 weavers of Hamilton, to have easily made it a fine place. 
 The gardener, who took us to the top of the house, when 
 we asked him to point out the way to the top of the hill, 
 did so, but added, with something like a boast, that though 
 he had been living at its base for sixty years, he had never 
 once even attempted to ascend it. 
 
 I have walked this morning to the opposite (or south) 
 side of the bay. It is by far the best of the two, at least 
 when warmed, as it was an hour ago, by the morning sun, 
 and in full prospect of the castle rising over its respectable 
 wood, and of the craggy summits of Goatfell. Every one 
 of the neat white cottages that are scattered about round 
 the whole bay is let to people who come here in summer 
 for health or idleness, and it was delightful to see so many 
 comfortable breakfasts laid out, in small, but very clean, 
 well-papered, cottage rooms. The church bell sounded, 
 I don't know why, as I was told that there was to be no 
 service, but its sound added greatly to the charm of the 
 tranquil scene. The day is balmj^, clear, and calm. 
 
 Brodick Inn, Monday, 8 a.m., \2th Septeinber 1842. — 
 The guides don't practise their profession upon Sunday, 
 even when there is no service, and therefore practised 
 their established pious fraud, of assuring us that yesterday 
 would be a bad day, but this a good one. We therefore 
 
fV£S T CIR C UIT—A UTUMN 1 842. 171 
 
 got a boy with two horses, on which we put Helen and 
 Elizabeth, and having packed a little refreshment into a 
 basket, we all set out on the ascent. The horses could only- 
 get about half-way up. The girls then dismounted, and 
 tried their own proper muscles. But Helen soon failed, 
 and was established on the lee-side of a rock till our 
 return. Elizabeth went to the very top. After lingering 
 there a long while, we picked up the one we had left, 
 recreated ourselves out of the basket, put the ladies on 
 their beasts, and were all safe here in about five and a half 
 hours from our setting out, which had been about eleven. 
 
 The guides proved so far right, that soon after our 
 reaching the top, we, and all our world, were covered with 
 mist. But it did not come on till after we had seen every- 
 thing, and cleared off three or four times. And it was 
 only the Argyleshire side that it ever entirely hid, leaving 
 Clyde almost constantly bright. It was not therefore a 
 jperfect day for Goatfell, but it was not a very had one. 
 We saw everything, but only not long, or steadily, enough. 
 With the exception of this partial misfortune on the 
 summit, the whole ascent and descent were absolutely 
 perfect, and the day, in every respect, was delicious. 
 
 In point of mere climbing, the ascent, except over a 
 few rocks near the top, is not at all formidable. A mule 
 could go to the very summit. 
 
 I have a taste for the tops of hills ; but making allow- 
 ance for this failing, it is certainly well worth the while 
 even of a lover of flat ground, to mount Goatfell. It 
 gives him a splendid prospect, both of land and water, 
 Nature has rarely been more fortunate. The elevation 
 of nearly 3000 feet of granite, in an island, placed in the 
 wide bay between Argyle on the west, and Renfrewshire 
 and Ayrshire on the east, and near the openings of 
 Loch Fyne and the Firth of Clyde ; from which eminence 
 
1 72 CIR CUITJO URNE YS. 
 
 all the adjacent seas, and firths, and lochs, and sounds, and 
 mountains, and islands are distinctly visible, was one of 
 her happiest achievements. 
 
 I have been on a good many Scotch hills ; but the com- 
 petitors for the first prize are only four; Ben Lomond, 
 Goatfell, Demyet, and Swanston (but neither this nor Cape 
 Law is the correct name) [Cairketton], the eastmost of the 
 Pentlands. The claim of Ben Lomond rests chiefly on the 
 stupendous mass of boiling mountains behind it. In point 
 of heautij Demyet is perhaps to be preferred, because it is 
 very low, and holds a delightful district of striking objects, 
 particularly Stirling, within its eye. Goatfell bids 
 defiance to them all, in the bright and varied splendour 
 of its many, and islanded waters, contrasted with the hard 
 and generally dark Argyleshire peaks, by which these 
 waters seem to be guarded and looked upon. But still, 
 considering the beauty of Edinburgh, and the dignity im- 
 parted to scenery by objects of importance, I am rather 
 inclined to give the palm to that Peutland. 
 
 For prospects, Ben Lawers, Ben Ledi, Ben More, and 
 Ben Nevis, are to be altogether discounted. Ben Nevis 
 however, has an indisputable superiority of interest, of 
 a diff'erent kind to every other height in the British Islands. 
 No other mountain is nearly so grand in itself. 
 
 I am sorrier now than I was last September, that I did 
 not ascend the hill in Skye. And, from what lies all 
 around at its feet, I can't conceive how Ben Cruachan 
 (which I have never yet ascended), can avoid holding the 
 spectator up to a prospect of first-rate magnificence. 
 
 This is another beautiful day, but not for the hill-top, 
 and I rejoice that we did not wait for it yesterday. 
 
 Brodick Inn, Monday Night, 12th September 1842. — This 
 forenoon was given to Glen Sannox, Elizabeth, Eliza 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1842. 173 
 
 Maitland (who came over this morning from Ardrossan with 
 my daughter Jane), H. Davidson, George Maitland, and I, 
 got in, and upon, a car, and drove the seven miles from 
 this to the lower end of the glen. The whole of these 
 seven miles are beautiful, both in their marine prospects, 
 and their fringing of rock and wood, down to the very- 
 shores. The girls walked up the glen, till they reached 
 a queer manufactory (not going) of Carytes. I went on 
 a good deal further, but was obliged to return for them. 
 Maitland and Davidson went up the whole of Sannox 
 and down Glenrosie, — a severe, but admirable walk. 
 These two glens — which hold Goatfell in their arms — 
 are of the same character ; rough with marsh and rock, 
 roaring with water, and gloriously hemmed in by black 
 splintered peaks. 
 
 It has been a calm delicious bright day, and Davidson 
 and I retire for the night, resolved to be once more on the 
 top of Goatfell, if the weather pleaseth, to-morrow. We 
 should have been there to-day, if the morning had told us 
 that after eleven the summit was to be so clear as it has 
 been. I again walked, between four and six, round this 
 bay. The south side is, beyond dispute, the best. But 
 my exploration was suddenly stopped by discovering that 
 a letter which I had written, addressed, and sealed, on 
 the Uli inst., to the Provost of Glasgow, announcing the 
 Circuit, and requiring him to process within his own 
 burgh, on Thursday first, was still in my pocket. I was 
 too late for the post, and had just time to hasten home, 
 and give the letter, crumpled as it was, to a person who 
 was stepping on board the steamer, and was to be in 
 Glasgow to-night. I rather suspect that I would have 
 stormed if anybody else had done this. 
 
 Arduossan, Tuesday Night, ISth September 1842. — To- 
 
1 74 CIR CUIT jo URNE YS. 
 
 day was another yesterday, so far as concerned the enjoy- 
 ment of the seashore regions, but warm lazy clouds lay 
 on the hill-tops. After lounging therefore on the beach 
 till two, Davidson and I set oif and walked to Lamlash ; 
 after viewing which, we embarked in the steamer, — went 
 back to Brodick, but did not land, took in the rest of the 
 party, and, bidding adieu to Arran, were here by seven. 
 
 Lamlash is quietly placed, and this is its only recom- 
 mendation. No, it has also a more gravelly beach than 
 Brodick, the only defect of which is, that a line of paltry 
 swamp is interposed between the beach and the houses. 
 In every other respect Lamlash is far inferior to its rival 
 capital ; particularly in want of wood, want of high hills, 
 and want of scattered cottages. These last, — the humble, 
 but clean, white cottages, that are tossed about, each oc- 
 cupied by a comfortable idler, — form the peculiar charm 
 of Brodick. 
 
 Glasgow, Wednesday Night, lUh Septemher 1842. — I 
 went this forenoon to Lochwinnoch, to attend the funeral 
 of my brother-in-law, Lieut.-Col. Laurence Macdowall. 
 After which I came here, where I found my colleague, 
 Lord Mackenzie, who has been at Inveraray. And so 
 nothing of this Circuit remains, except the comfortable 
 prospect of having to try about one hundred criminal cases, 
 besides some civil ones, and to dispose of some appeals. 
 
 But I have forgot Ardrossan. It is above, or about, 
 thirty years since I last saw it. It was then a sort of 
 poor fishing- village, with no harbour, and no fashion as a 
 bathing-place. The late Earl of Eglinton was just begin- 
 ning the attempt to realise his vision, of glorifying and 
 enriching his family, by carrying a canal from Glasgow, 
 by Paisley, to this part of his property, and thus making 
 Ardrossan Tyre, and Saltcoats Sidon. The canal, after 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN i^^2. 175 
 
 being bankrupt, reached Johnstone, and now, with its rail- 
 way rival, it will certainly never advance an inch further. 
 But his lordship succeeded in compelling the sea to submit 
 to be a small port, and in alluring genteel invalids, by a 
 large bad inn, and small bad baths, to resort there in 
 summer. So Ardrossan is a town, and has a harbour. 
 
 There is no beauty in its own immediate neighbourhood. 
 But no place on the Firth of Clyde can ever be without 
 charms and interest, and until Arran shall be covered 
 again by the waters, it will always be delightful to look 
 from Ardrossan. It consists at present chiefly of a single 
 line of small houses, curving with the line of the beach ; in 
 front of the houses is the public road or street, and next 
 the street the sea, which ebbs very little. The summer 
 population consists mostly of strangers, few of whom have 
 what, in Scotch Irish, are called self-contained houses, 
 most of them cramming into the small, but clean, upper 
 flats, which are let for bathers by the poorer people below. 
 The whole place is respectably clean. 
 
 The ladies' bathing is conducted on the genuine Scotch 
 principle, of not being at all ashamed of it, as why should 
 they "? Is it not pure ? and healthy ? and ordered by the 
 doctor ? and anything wrong in it 1 So the ladies emerge, 
 in full day, from their flats, in their bathing-dresses, 
 attended by a maid, and a sister or aunt, the maid carry- 
 ing a small bundle containing a towel and some dry clothes, 
 the friend tittering. The bather crosses the road, and 
 goes to the sea, which is never more than a few yards, or 
 inches, beyond the road's edge. She then enters the water, 
 and shivers, or splashes, according to her taste, conversing 
 or laughing or screaming all the while, with her attendants 
 ashore. But it is on coming out that the delicate part of 
 the operation begins ; for, as they don't walk home wet, 
 and then dress in their own rooms, they must change their 
 
1 76 CIR CUIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 ivhole raiment before the public. For this purpose the 
 maid holds a portion of the dry vestment over the dripping 
 lady's head, and as the soaked gown descends to the heels, 
 the dry is supposed to descend over the head as fast, so 
 that the pinciple is, that, between the two, the lady is 
 never seen. Ignorance is sometimes bliss, and it is very 
 wise in the assistants never to tell the patient anything 
 about it. But I wonder how, when they happen to be 
 looking at a fellow- exhibitor, and observe the interest 
 taken from every window, and by all the street, in the 
 proceeding, they can avoid discovering that such feats are 
 seldom performed without revelations, and that a single 
 fold of wet linen adheres too accurately to the inner 
 surface to require any other revelation. 
 
 But I never saw bathing performed by ladies in Scotland 
 even with common decency. Why the devil can't they 
 use bathing-machines, or go into retired places, or wall or 
 pale off enclosures % There was one bathing-machine on 
 the beach at Ardrossan, which was rarely used, and two 
 in the inn court, which the landlord told me were never 
 used at all. Portobello, however (the most immodest spot 
 in Scotland), shows that machines may be used so as to 
 be no protection, but the reverse, for there they are used, 
 nearly touching, by men and women indiscriminately. 
 
 BoNALY, Saturday^ 24:th September 1842. — We began at 
 Glasgow on the morning of Thursday the 1 5th, and ended 
 yesterday at four o'clock P.M. We had exactly 99 cases 
 to dispose of, being about 15 or 20 more than were ever 
 on the list at any of our Circuits, and, one way or other, 
 every one of them was disposed of. None, I mean, that 
 could have been tried were not tried. There was no 
 capital case, and the whole batch was utterly uninteresting, 
 the great majority being commonplace thefts. The exile 
 of about 60 of our fellow- creatures is upon our souls. 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN \%/^2. 177 
 
 One of our days was a Sunday, a very serious thing in 
 Glasgow. To avoid its horrors, Lord Mackenzie spent 
 the day at Possil. But I rather think I fell upon a better 
 scheme. Because the Court having risen at six on the 
 Saturday evening, I got into the seven o'clock train, and 
 found myself lure {Bonaly), at tea and an Q^^g, before ten. 
 On Monday morning at seven, the impatient engine, after 
 grunting and hissing to get away, was set free; and at 
 nine exactly I was back in Glasgow, and, after a leisurely 
 breakfast, was in Court when it met at ten. I remember 
 Jeffrey offering to speak till a writing could be brought 
 from Glasgow, though the shortest journey then was five 
 hours going and five coming, rather than his cause should 
 be lost. Few orators will restrict themselves now to a run 
 to Glasgow. 
 
 Mr. Charles Neaves was our Depute- Advocate, a sensible 
 man, agreeable, literary, and an excellent compounder of 
 clever humorous verse, chiefly in the line of songs, which 
 he also sings well. 
 
 Lord Mackenzie is a very old acquaintance, and one 
 of the best possible colleagues. A weak, awkward, and 
 apparently timid manner, gives him an outward appearance 
 almost directly the reverse of the real man. For beneath 
 this external air of helplessness, there works an acute, 
 resolute, and original understanding ; combined with great 
 intelligence, and a very amiable heart. Not very practical, 
 and wanting tact, he seems to be constantly engaged with 
 his own speculations, the intrepidity of which make an 
 amusing contrast with the feebleness of his manner. 
 He is a most excellent man, a singularly agreeable com- 
 panion, and an admirable judge ; except that, on the Bench, 
 whenever there is anything to be done which requires 
 force, or impressiveness, his poverty of manner makes him 
 necessarily fail. But in private life this outside awkward- 
 ness makes him only picturesque. 
 
 51 
 
178 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 I see that I have forgot to do justice to the inn at 
 Brodick, I had heard all my life, and particularly this 
 very summer, that one of the difficulties of a pilgrimage 
 to Arran was that it was impossible to go to the inn, as 
 it was abominable, and choke full of Glasgow weavers 
 every time that a steamer arrived, and that there were no 
 attainable lodgings to make up for this. All nonsense ! 
 Lodgings it would clearly be difficult, or impossible, to 
 get for a few days, and at this season. But the inn — for 
 there is only one — is excellent, for a Scotch country inn 
 most excellent, well-placed, clean, retired, with a good 
 larder, and much kindness. The widow landlady, Mrs. 
 Jameson, is a nice, respectable, motherly person. There 
 is at present only one steamer daily, which sails from 
 Ardrossan, and when we were there it landed no passengers 
 whose existence was known to us ; we had the upper flat 
 of the house. 
 
 I was one morning admiring a very handsome boy about 
 six years old, dressed as a Highlander, and whose fate will 
 probably be fulfilled by his being landlord of the inn, or a 
 shepherd on Goatfell. Mrs. Jameson told me he was her 
 son, and said she would like to consult me about what she 
 should do with him. After various schemes on my part, 
 none of which ever went beyond his being landlord, or a 
 waiter, or a shepherd, or a poacher, she, a decent, sensible 
 widow, with not a joke even in her head, said, ivith the 
 most perfect gravity and sincerity : " If I was to send him to 
 Edinbro, do ye think they wad sune mak him a joodge 1 " 
 (judge). I had not cruelty to cloud her maternal visions 
 altogether. But all the hope I could give her consisted 
 in assuring her that birth, whatever influence it once 
 might have had, had little to do with it now. Whereat 
 she seemed considerably cheered. 
 
WEST CIECUIT. 
 
 Spring 1843. 
 
 Tarbet, Thursday Night, 20th April 1843. — I ought to 
 have gone the South Circuit this Spring, but I have con- 
 trived to avoid it, because John Hope, the Justice-Clerk, 
 the most uncomfortable of all possible companions, would 
 have been my colleague. But I could not have escaped 
 him had it not been that it was a more convenient Circuit 
 than any other for poor Moncreiff, who being obliged to 
 go to London for medical advice for his wife, who is 
 alarmingly ill, wished it to be late and short. I had 
 attempted all sort of manoeuvres to get rid of our chief; 
 but they were all defeated, because I found that all my 
 brethren were manoeuvring for the same object. A curious 
 fact for the head of a Court. 
 
 But I have got Meadowbank, who has been at Stirling. 
 I am on my way to Inveraray, and we meet at Glasgow. 
 
 Elizabeth (my daughter), Graham Maitland, and I, left 
 Edinburgh by the railway this morning at eight ; reached 
 Glasgow ten minutes before ten, breakfasted there, left 
 it at twelve, and were here by four. 
 
 There must be an end of engraving the same lines, so 
 I have nothing new to say. 
 
 It was a dull rain nearly the whole way from Glasgow 
 to Tarbet. The young grass and the bright larches were 
 not the worse of this, but it is impossible to forgive the 
 sun when he does not shine on Loch Lomond. I retract 
 
 179 
 
180 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 as to Kilpatrick, which to-day had rather a blaclfguard 
 appearance ; a distinct west-country manufacturing black- 
 guardism. And oh ! how abominable is the whole course 
 of the Leven ! Pure enough, I suppose, in Smollett's 
 time, but now a nearly unbroken track of manufactories, 
 which seem to unite the whole pollutions of smoke, 
 chemistry, hot water, and squalid population, and blight 
 a valley which nature meant to be extremely beautiful. 
 No " mottled parr " now, unless they are mottled by the 
 refuse of dyes. It is only when the loch opens, and we 
 cast Glasgow and its feculence off, that the region of beauty 
 and magnificence begins. 
 
 We walked about a couple of miles up the loch before 
 dinner, and now (ten at night) the water and the moun- 
 tains are dark and silent. 
 
 Dalmally, Sunday Night, 23d April 1843. — We left 
 Tarbet on Friday at eleven, and after much lingering and 
 sauntering in Glencroe, and the considerate aid of a lame 
 horse, reached Inveraray at four. 
 
 The day, though never bright, and occasionally showery, 
 was mild and calm. I have only two things to record 
 this time about Glencroe. One is that the stone tablet at 
 Rest-and-be-Thankful, which used to attest the merits of 
 General Wade, who, about eighty years ago, had made 
 this, as he had made other Highland roads, has recently 
 been chipped and rendered utterly illegible, for which it 
 is fortunate for some people that man's curses are often 
 fruitless. The other is, that in the whole glen I could not 
 find a primrose, even in leaf, though I have seen miles of 
 it brightened with them nearly forty years ago, and in this 
 very month. Possibly May may evoke them. But there 
 is something strange in the localities of this delightful 
 flower; for I am satisfied that there are places where, 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— SPRING 1843. 181 
 
 after being planted and after settling themselves and 
 spreading for years, they die out ; and no one can traverse 
 the Highlands without finding other places where it is 
 difficult to suppose that they can have been planted, and 
 yet where they abound. Since they are tossed profusely 
 over several parts of the banks of Loch Lomond, over all 
 the neighbourhood of Inveraray, and over the shores of 
 Loch Awe, — and they flourish best amidst moisture — why 
 should there be intervening districts with the very same 
 surface and climate, which ages have never made them 
 reach, or from which they have decayed? Do sheep 
 extirpate them"? If they do, this fact would go far to 
 explain their apparently capricious eradication; for it 
 is only, or at least chiefly under the shelter of old spongy 
 copse, or the drippings of rocks, that they seem to domes- 
 ticate. 
 
 The business at Inveraray began on Saturday at ten, 
 and was over that day by five. No case worth mention- 
 ing. A jury of fifteen stots acquitted a most aggravated 
 assaulter, in spite of the clearest possible evidence, to 
 make up for which they repeatedly and obstinately tried 
 to convict him of another ofi"ence, with which it was over 
 and over again explained to them that he was not 
 charged. One does fall in with a bad drove occasionally. 
 
 I gave the usual festival in the evening (for a breakfast, 
 I find, won't go down), with claret jolted last week all the 
 way from Leith, as the landlord said, for the occasion. 
 
 I had been over all the grounds in immediate connec- 
 tion with the castle on Friday, before and after dinner, 
 and to-day David Milne, the Advocate-Depute, and I went 
 to the top of Dunaquaich, and other places, before breakfast. 
 In the churchyard, which lies hid behind a horrid wall, 
 about half a mile north of the town, Milne found the 
 following gallant epitaph on the tombstone of " John 
 
182 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 Stewart, Lieutenant in the 21st Regiment of Foot," who 
 died in May 1820, aged 29 :— 
 
 Farewell, vain world ! I know enougli of tliee, 
 I value not what thou can'st say of me. 
 
 After this preparation (and a breakfast of most admir- 
 able sea trout) I went canonically to church. A procession 
 must necessarily be imposing to a public whose magistrates 
 heading it are sixteen in number, while their constituents 
 are only twenty-eight. It was a neat, clean little church, 
 and a discourse very strong in the water. There certainly 
 were not 150 people present. I could only count 132. 
 Nor was there a single kilt, or blue bonnet, a plaid, or 
 yard of tartan. All Saxon and apathy. But this was the 
 temple of the aristocracy ; which at Inveraray consists of 
 writers and the Duke. The Gaelic was going on at the 
 other side of the wall. For a town population of about 
 1200, and a country population attending church of far 
 less than 800, that is for 2000 people, they have six 
 services, three English and three Gaelic, every Sunday, one 
 of each being in the evening ; and of the two ministers, 
 dull though he was, the provost assured me that the one 
 I got was by far the liveliest. God help the natives, both 
 for the quality and the quantity. 
 
 I have been acquainted with Inveraray since I was a 
 lad, and I never saw it without feeling that it was 
 unworthy of the great reputation it has contrived to get. 
 It is plain that Sir David Wilkie (Life, vol. i. pp. 473, 474) 
 thought so too. The castle is abominable. And it and 
 the town are so conspicuously near, that each hurts the 
 other. The head of the loch is too narrow. Except 
 Dunaquaich, which is certainly picturesque, the hills are 
 all insignificant, and those which bound the east side of 
 the loch are utterly paltry. Except in being strewed over 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— SPRING 1843. 183 
 
 by some very fine trees, every one of which, however, is 
 dying of moss, there is nothing in the laying out of the 
 grounds. A brilliant sun gilds anything, but in its 
 ordinary state, Inveraray to me is a scene of heavy 
 dulness. 
 
 We left it to-day after church, and came here. I have 
 not been along the east side of Loch Awe since I missed 
 ^Id Lord Meadowbank, with whom I was going this 
 Circuit as Advocate Depute in 1808 or 1809, and had to 
 walk from Dalmally to Inveraray, I had not forgot it ; 
 but my admiration of this noble loch is greatly raised by 
 to-day's view. Its islands, though mostly small, are more 
 numerous than those in most of our lakes. Not one of 
 our lakes has such irregularity of shape (I speak only of 
 this end), or variety of outline. And which of them can 
 boast of a Ben Cruachan ? So far as I have seen our 
 sheets of fresh water, the competition for the second place 
 clearly lies between Loch Awe and Maree. The first is 
 indisputably due to Loch Lomond. 
 
 Tarbet, Monday Night, 2Uh April 1843. — A successful 
 day. 
 
 We took a car before breakfast and went to Kilchurn, 
 of which, besides seeing it, I wanted to have a bit, for my 
 long contemplated, and seemingly never to be executed, 
 old castle chessmen. It is a very fine ruin, grandly placed. 
 There are far larger and far more beautiful and interesting 
 fragments of religious architecture in Scotland, but I can- 
 not recollect the ruins of any greater castle. And this one 
 has still enough of turret, and window, and ivy remaining 
 to render it perhaps in as perfect a stage for preservation, 
 as a ruin, as it ever has been or can be. But what murder 
 it is undergoing ! There is little neighbouring population, 
 and therefore there is little of the usual Scotch sheer filth 
 
184 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 But except this, there is every other atrocity. Not one 
 sixpence of money or one moment of care has ever been 
 bestowed on either of the two duties of protecting or of 
 cleaning. The whole rubbish has been allowed to accumu- 
 late exactly as it has fallen ; and not one trowelful of 
 lime has ever been laid out to prevent the descent and 
 accumulation of more. The consequences are that the 
 inside is almost utterly inaccessible, and that time has 
 made, and is making, innumerable obvious preparations for 
 undermining and throwing down more large and important 
 masses. Whole walls seem to depend in some places on 
 the crumbling of a small stone. The boatman who rowed 
 us over (for though it be on the mainland, boating is the 
 driest way of reaching it) defended his master, the Marquis 
 of Breadalbane, to whom it belongs, by saying that " Some- 
 thing had been dune til't a while ago, as ye wad see by a 
 stane abune the door." And no doubt there is a clear cut 
 lintel above the door, with the date of 1693; for the 
 repairs of which period the castle, after standing since the 
 1 3th century, it is to be hoped was grateful. But has there 
 been a shilling laid out since 1693, in mere protection or 
 clearing? It is scandalous, and to me utterly incompre- 
 hensible. Here is a noble Marquis with an estate of the 
 highest class, and no children, who can afford to entertain 
 the Queen, and to cover the country from sea to sea with 
 gamekeepers, and to exhaust all the powers of decoration 
 on his residence at Taymouth, but cannot give a mite or 
 a thought for the decency or the perpetuation of a great 
 historical relic, in comparison of which, m reference even 
 to the dignity of his own estate, queens and upholsterers are 
 nothing. It is not avarice, nor is it ignorance, at least 
 not in his case. It proceeds from want of thought, which 
 creates the habit of being reconciled to what ought to be 
 felt shameful; till at last he who would give £500 for a 
 hearthrug, or £5000 for a Gothic dairy, stares at the idea 
 
WEST CIRCUIT-SPRING 1S43. 185 
 
 of expending a shilling on arresting the decay of the only 
 thing he may happen to possess which painting or poetry 
 think worthy of their notice.^ 
 
 In going to Kilchurn we saw several swallows, the first 
 of the year. 
 
 We left Dalmally about eleven, went to Tyndrum, 
 then to Inverarnan, 12 miles, and here, 10 miles more. 
 There is a good deal of hill, though the whole road is 
 excellent, but we walked and loitered, and our day's 
 journey of 34 miles was only ended by the carriage at 
 about five, and by me, who walked the last stage, at about six. 
 
 All I now say of Dalmally and Tyndrum, and of their 
 ranges, is that I adhere to all I have said already. What 
 can I say more % 
 
 I never came down by the head of Loch Lomond except 
 once before, and this was about twenty years ago, and while 
 the old road was in its full adventurous impassableness. 
 Two of that party, Mrs. Richardson and Sir Charles Bell, 
 are no more, but I often saw them to-day. 
 
 The new road has greatly changed, and greatly improved 
 the general scenery. It would not be easy to find twelve 
 more beautiful or picturesque miles than those between 
 Glenfalloch and Tarbet. The descent towards Loch 
 Lomond is not quite completed, when the hills are 
 observed to have lost the whole of the unbroken massive- 
 ness which had marked those in the region above, and to 
 have become rocky and ridgy. And there is a very strik- 
 ing succession of them visible along the whole way, from 
 Ben Oss, at the upper end of the valley, to Ben Lomond, 
 which though far below, is seen to more advantage, because 
 deprived of its lumpiness, than in any other aspect. The 
 whole district is as fully wooded as perhaps is desirable ; 
 and the copse has been sprinkled with unusual liberality 
 higher up the hills than I can recollect to have seen it. 
 ^ Joicrnals, vol. ii, 122. 
 
1 86 CIR CUIT JO UKNE VS. 
 
 1 was alarmed by observing a great collection of sawn 
 wood, and of large cut forest trees ; because seeing no new 
 plantations or enclosures, and recollecting that insolvency 
 is essential to a Scotch laird, I anticipated that next time 
 I was here there would not be an old stem left, if there 
 was a sawmill. But I found that there was not, and that 
 this was a depot of wood cut about Taymouth, and on its 
 way to the Clyde. The whole sides of the hills are 
 engraved by torrents, all rushing to contribute their mites 
 to the treasury of Loch Lomond. The day was cloudy 
 but fair, and the tops of all the hills, though sunless, were 
 quite clear. There are a few patches of farming, which, by 
 contrast, rather improve the picturesque sublimity of a 
 valley in which there is nothing soft except the surface of 
 the lake, and the young leaves. 
 
 About eight miles above this I saw a large rock, which 
 had plainly fallen from a hill behind, standing by itself about 
 100 yards off the road, with a wooden door placed in its 
 front. I waited till the carriage came up and asked the 
 driver what it was, who said it was a church. We sent to 
 a house about half a mile back for the key, when it was 
 all explained. It is not a church, but a pulpit. The place 
 is in the parish of Arrochar, but far from the kirk. So 
 the people have made a very striking kirk of their own. 
 This stone seemed to be about as large as a three-storied 
 house. I took it to be about 40 feet high by 40 wide, 
 except towards the top, where it rounds off, thus — 
 
 It is one single stone, and stands quite alone. Its top is 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— SPRING 1843. 187 
 
 covered with growing heather. The whole end where the 
 door is, is perfectly smooth, a face of clear whin. And 
 this end is not quite perpendicular, only because it projects 
 a little forward. It is called the Bull Stone, from a 
 tradition that it was shaken and dislodged from its original 
 position by two bulls when they were fighting. 
 
 Well, as the movable wooden pulpit which is usual at 
 field preachings would have but a poor chance amidst 
 these rocky and shivered solitudes, they have picked and 
 blasted an excellent covered rostrum out of the solid stone. 
 The hole inside is about 8 feet high, 6 feet wide, 
 and 5 deep. There are ten rude stone steps up to it. 
 A wooden bench is fixed in the back part, the door is 
 cut across into two divisions, and during service the lower 
 division is kept shut, and a movable desk being hooked 
 upon it, the minister is seen about 16 feet above the 
 ground, exactly as in an ordinary pulpit, except that he 
 is closed in on the sides and overhead. There is room for 
 one elder, or any other of the aristocracy, on the bench on 
 each side of the preacher. The congregation sits (if it 
 chooses to sit) on rows of seats fronting the pulpit, these 
 seats being made of lines of low dry stone wall, cushioned 
 with turf. Humble as all this is, it is not too humble for 
 charity. We found two ladles under the bench. I put 
 the whole silver I had into them. It was only a sixpence 
 for each. But no one can give more than he has. Paper 
 would have rotted before the next angel visit. 
 
 I cordially agreed with Graham Maitland, when she 
 said that she would like to hear Guthrie preach from that 
 pulpit. Now that Chalmers, v\'ho is incomparably his 
 superior in knowledge and in genius, is on the wane, 
 Guthrie is our greatest preacher, and though never courting 
 vulgar popularity by fanaticism or any other unbecoming 
 art, and always observing good sense and good taste, he is 
 
188 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 pre-eminently the orator of the poor. It would indeed be 
 glorious to hear him under the inspiration of this scene : 
 the dark and pinnacled hills all around ; the lake, scarcely 
 rippling, in front, the remnant of Presbyterian mountaineers 
 under the open sky, and he addressing them from his 
 living rock, amidst the very haunts where their forefathers 
 bled, in order that they might hear the same doctrines, 
 preached in the same forms ! If Guthrie will preach this 
 sermon, I shall willingly go all the way from Edinburgh 
 to hear it. I think I see the tall dark man, with his 
 singularly graceful action, and hear the full sonorous 
 voice, and the strong natural eloquence, all applied with 
 simplicity, assuredness and success, to soothe and elevate 
 the poor by all the hopes and comforts which they 
 peculiarly require. 
 
 Gakscube, Tuesday Night, 25th April 1843. — We came 
 here to-day, through wind and rain, from Tarbet. I have 
 been invited to this hospitable house for above thirty 
 years, but never made it out till now. A very comfortable 
 place, with the air and the reality of luxury, in everything 
 about it. Considering the odious manufacturing country 
 that surrounds it, its principal excellence is its singular 
 seclusion within the dressed ground of the place. A 
 stranger could never suspect while admiring its trees, beauti- 
 ful grass, well-kept walks, its garden, stream, and mansion- 
 house, that if he ventured to raise his head above the 
 slopes that enclose him, he would see groves of chimneys, 
 the obelisks of manufacturers, polluting the atmosphere on 
 every side. 
 
 BoNALY, dd May 1843.— Meadowbank and I left Gars- 
 cube on the morning of Wednesday the 26th of April, 
 and processed into Glasgow. Whether it was our error 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— SPRING 1843. 189 
 
 or theirs I do not know, but the magistrates and we took 
 different roads, and for about half an hour we chased each 
 other, to the great diversion of the people. AVe had our 
 public dinner on that day, and were quiet, though not 
 absolutely solitary, every day afterwards. On Saturday 
 evening I came to Edinburgh, and went back on Monday 
 morning. 
 
 There were 82 indictments and 142 prisoners. Some 
 of these cases were so long, that if they had all gone 
 on, they could not have been disposed of till the end of 
 this week. But a doubt occurred about the citations of 
 about twenty of the longest of them, which prevented 
 these being proceeded with, and it has had a similar eff"ect 
 at Perth. This misfortune, for it is wrong not to dispose 
 of all the business, and it generally recurs at some less 
 convenient season, liberated us suddenly yesterday at two, 
 and at five we were in Edinburgh. 
 
 There was one capital sentence, a murderer's, a brute, 
 who after fatiguing himself by beating his half-drunk wife, 
 at last sharpened a knife on the hearthstone, and stabbed 
 her, all because she would not give him breakfast, which 
 his blows made her incapable of doing, but which was 
 done for her by another woman. She was an intolerable 
 wife, insomuch that he had often said that "one of us 
 would certainly swing for the other." But they had gone 
 out this morning about nine on good terms, and had 
 returned in about an hour, both more stupefied than 
 excited by whisky ; and after taking all his blows with- 
 out any other resistance than an appeal to "Charley, 
 dear," the wretched woman was bled to death by a fierce 
 cut of the femoral artery, on no other provocation than 
 that of being disabled by his violence from feeding 
 the beast with her own hands. This scene occurred on a 
 Sunday; a day sacred, with a part of our population, 
 
1 90 CIR C UIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 to whisky and brutality. Tiie convict's name is Charles 
 Mackay. 
 
 There was also the case of a woman accused of murder- 
 ing her husband, but it was one of the twenty, and did not 
 come on. It will be a famous case in its day, however. 
 She first committed the capital offence of giving her husband 
 a dose of arsenic, which very nearly killed him, but he 
 survived it. Thinking (truly) that it was her unskilful- 
 ness in administering that made this dose fail, she resolved 
 to improve herself by a little practice, and then to renew 
 the attempt. She therefore experimented upon a neigh- 
 bour, whom she killed. And having now ascertained how 
 to proceed, she gave another dose to her spouse, and killed 
 him too. She was indicted for the two murders and the 
 abortive administration, an awkward accumulation of 
 charges. It being in her case that the motion to put off 
 all the trials was made, she was brought to the bar ; and, 
 whether it was fancy or not, struck me as having a very 
 singular expression. She was little, apparently middle- 
 aged, modest and gentle looking, with firm-set lips, a pale 
 countenance, and suspicious restless eyes. Her name is 
 Mary Macfarlane or Taylor. 
 
 A band of five horrible women, — real Glasgow faggots, — 
 incorrigible devils, were sent to Botany in a batch, for a 
 ferocious robbery, committed on a decent stranger they 
 had inveigled into their den. I was greatly diverted by 
 overhearing the account which one of them gave, in a 
 soliloquy, of her learned judges, as she was leaving the 
 
 bar, " Twa d d auld grey-headed blackguards ! They 
 
 gie us plenty o' their law, but deevilish little joostice ! " 
 
 My books were the 156th No. of the Edinhurgh Review^ 
 and Allan Cunningham's Life of Sir David Wilkie. The last 
 is made dull by sheer protraction. Instead of three large 
 volumes, one moderate one would have been enough. 
 
WEST CIRCUIT—SPRING 1843. 191 
 
 Wilkie seems to have been a modest, amiable, industrious, 
 and contented man, but without much originality or 
 strength of mind. His life does not impress me with a 
 favourable idea of the position even of a successful artist 
 in this country. In Wilkie's case it produced little money 
 and constant anxiety about patronage. 
 
WEST CIRCUIT. 
 
 Autumn 1843. 
 
 EoTHESAY, Sundatj Night, 10th Septemher 1843. — My 
 two daughters, Elizabeth and Mrs. Stewart, and I, left 
 Edinburgh yesterday by the one o'clock train, and were in 
 Glasgow before three. At four we left Glasgow by the 
 train, and got to Greenock by five, and then, embarking 
 in a steamer, were here by seven. 
 
 I never was at this famed place before, or indeed below 
 Dunoon, except crossing from Ardrossan to Largs. It far 
 exceeds all my expectations. 
 
 There could not possibly have been a more perfect 
 evening. Such a September, so far as it has yet gone, has 
 rarely been seen or felt in Scotland. The temperature 
 was about 70 in the shade, which, at this season, implies 
 a cloudless sky. The Clyde was glorious ! Whether is 
 it the bright waters of the Firth, or the dark masses of 
 the Argyleshire hills, or the bays and the promontories, 
 or the long lochs and the islands, or the holiday gaiety of 
 little sea towns devoted to idleness and enjoyment, or all 
 of them, that constitute the peculiar charm of all this 
 district 1 Before our voyage was over, the southern sides 
 of the Argyle mountains were in the shade, the glow of 
 the sunset was fading even from the opposite shores of 
 Eenfrew and Ayr ; and at last the moon, nearly full, had 
 quenched the few remaining streaks of day, and was shed- 
 ding its magical lustre over this beautiful bay and its 
 
 192 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1843. 193 
 
 delightful little town. Our landing, with the people 
 lounging under the mitigated air, and the lights in the 
 semicircle of windows, was striking and pleasing. Henry 
 Davidson (who was waiting for us) and I, walked along 
 the beach for nearly an hour before retiring to rest, and 
 indeed even after the night-shirt was on, it was not easy 
 to refrain from taking always one other gaze at the 
 trembling water, the bright houses, and the silent masses 
 of the hills. 
 
 Last night the whole population was abroad. This was 
 not quite so good a day, being grave, hazy, and pensive, 
 but still it has been warm, calm, and pleasing. But, being 
 Sunday, the population has been all dead. I had always 
 heard that a smile upon the Lord's day was a sin in 
 Rothesay, and now I have found it to be so. The land- 
 lord and landlady of this imUic inn (no less than " The 
 Bute Arms,") refused to let Davidson and his brother have 
 their dinner in the house two years ago, because it was 
 Sunday. They were driven into a temperance coffee-house, 
 where their stomachs were filled with solids; but not a 
 drop of wine were they allowed even to bring in, and they 
 only got it by the good nature of a compassionate apothe- 
 cary, who sent them in a bottle of sherry, wrapped up and 
 labelled, with all the laboratory marks, as Bitters. Last 
 night I said I wanted to see the ruins of the castle this 
 morning. " No power on earth will get you in to-morrow, 
 it 's Sunday. " I then asked if the garden of Mount Stuart 
 was shown. " Oh, to everybody, my lord, but not upon 
 Sunday." And conformably to this mode of making 
 Sunday amiable, except on the way to and from the 
 Established Church, and the Free Church, and the Seceders, 
 the people have been literally dead. Not a foot has been 
 heard on the pavement, no working man's dusty skin has 
 been refreshed in the pure sea, no boat has skimmed from 
 
 N 
 
194 CIRCUri JO URNE VS. 
 
 the shore, no eye has performed the pious homage of rais- 
 ing itself to observe glories which God does not veil upon 
 Sunday. 
 
 However, Davidson and I contrived to get a car, and 
 to give ourselves a general notion of Bute, the Montpellier 
 of Scotland. We first went to Mount Stuart. No 
 admission to the garden. We strolled through some part of 
 the grounds, but thought little of them, possibly because we 
 were angry. If I had been autocrat of Bute, I would have 
 erected my castle at this (the Rothesay) end of the island. 
 But every station near any part of its shores is good. 
 
 We then drove to Kingarth — a mere name, with two or 
 three cot houses, an inn, and a church, most beautifully 
 situated, so as to look upon the sea on both sides of the 
 island, at least by going a very few paces. 
 
 After driving a few miles homeward by the inland road, 
 we left the car, and walked along a succession of heights, 
 to the top of the highest ground in the island : spelt " Ben 
 Varogen " by MacCulloch, but pronounced by the natives 
 " Ba-rone," leaving out the Ben. I should doubt its being 
 higher than Arthur Seat. Yet MacCulloch says (vol. ii. p. 
 20), " Arran is here a peculiarly fine object, the whole of its 
 mountain district being displayed in a magnificent manner, 
 and conveying a more perfect idea of the grandeur of this 
 tract than can be obtained from any other position." I 
 suppose this means that a better idea of the grandeur of 
 this district is to be obtained from Barone than from 
 Goatfell. This is an example of the different eyes, though 
 in the same head, with which it is possible to see things in 
 different states; a good or a bad day, good or bad humour, 
 fatigue or strength, i3atience or impatience, make all the 
 odds in the world; insomuch that they can render the 
 prospect from Barone as magnificent as that from Goatfell. 
 We did not see it well, because the extreme distances 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1843. 19-'> 
 
 were invisible, and nothing even of Arran was to be seen 
 except a part of its dim ghost. But the whole of Bute, 
 and all the near seas and lands, were within our view \ 
 and occasional abatings of the warm haze, aided by some 
 bright streaks, disclosed enough of the distance to show 
 that under a clearer sun the unobstructed panorama must 
 be both beautiful and grand. The interior of this island, 
 however, is paltry. Its cultivation is the best of it. The 
 portions still in a state of nature consist of poor, llattish 
 heath, and of the four or five fresh-water lochs, none have 
 any beauty except Loch Fad, and it not much. The only 
 striking feature in the internal scenery is this town of 
 Rothesay, which lies delightfully between two little hills, 
 with its bay, round which it is extending its arms in front. 
 The people still try to make a sight of Kean's cottage, 
 merely because it was lived in by that ranting liquor-loving 
 player, and seemed surprised that we would not go to look 
 at it. 
 
 On the whole, this famous Bute is plainly worthy of its 
 reputation. For though there did not seem to me to be a 
 single inland spot which seemed to say, " Place a cottage 
 here," there was no part of the shore which did not give 
 such an invitation. The sea, and the absence of great 
 heights, account, I suppose, for the undoubted softness of 
 the climate. But it is this town, with its quiet bay, its 
 Argyle hills, its idle holiday population, its active steamers 
 landing and removing sight-seeing crowds, that is the 
 real charm of the island. 
 
 Rothesay, Monday, 9 a.m., Wtli September 1843. — We 
 have been this morning to the castle. I have been wrong 
 (p. 183) in calling Kilchurn the largest of our Scotch 
 castles in ruin. Robert Bruce's, at Rothesay, is much larger, 
 and must have been a noble edifice, but its being placed 
 
1 96 CIR CUIT JO UKNE YS. 
 
 where it is seems odd, for it has no natural defences of rock 
 or of situation. It was cleared out about twenty-six years 
 ago, and though not at all as it ought to be, is in a far 
 better condition than most of our ruins. It will crumble, 
 however, sooner than it need do, under the mass of 
 universal ivy which is encouraged to eat into its bones. 
 
 A good day for our sail through the Kyles, clouds and 
 sunshine playing on all the hills. But the wind is far too 
 high for the chyle of my stomach. 
 
 Ardpatrick, Tuesday Morning, I2th Septemher 1843. — 
 We lingered about Eothesay yesterday till near twelve, 
 sauntering up its heights, and round its bay. It is really 
 beautiful; and at this season, on a fine day, enjoyment 
 seems to be the sole business of the inhabitants. Going 
 in cars, boating, sitting on the rocks or at open windows, 
 bathing, sewing or reading on the shore, looking through 
 telescopes, or basking in luxurious idleness, — these are the 
 occupations of a community composed of strangers who 
 resort there for pleasure, and of natives who let their 
 houses to them. The bathing is conducted on the 
 primaeval and innocent principle of seeing no difference 
 between water and air, and of living with the same 
 freedom in both. It is more socially done than at 
 Ardrossan, where the ladies come forth in their marine 
 robes one by one ; whereas at Rothesay I counted a single 
 group of about forty, all in company, and indeed in 
 contact, and very merry. And it wants the profligacy of 
 Portobello, where men intermix, with an obvious but 
 disregarded sense of its impropriety ; while at Rothesay 
 such is the universal simplicity that there is no conscious- 
 ness whatever that, in point of decency, there is any 
 difference between wet clothes and dry, or even between 
 clothes and no clothes. Men and women, and ladies and 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1843. 197 
 
 gentlemen, proceed Avith their respective visits to the sea, 
 close together, and apparently even in arranged parties, 
 with exactly the same ease and absence of ceremony that 
 they would feel in walking and conversing together in a 
 ball-room. I had been told that this was always the case 
 at Rothesay, and it did not require more than a few hours of 
 one warm day to show that the report was correct. A 
 single fact indeed attests it. The edge of the bay is lined 
 for at least half a mile by dwelling-houses standing close 
 together. These houses are not 100 feet from the water, 
 and all the bathing is in front of them ; yet, except one 
 private one, there is vot a single hathing-machine or covered 
 bathing-house of any kind in the ivhole ])lace. So simple is 
 the purity of this little island ; it refines even strangers 
 who come upon it from the mainland. 
 
 Davidson returned to Dunoon, where he is living with 
 his brother Archibald, and the rest of us embarked in the 
 Inveraray steamer about twelve. We reached East Tarbert 
 about three, took a car across the mile to West Tarbert, 
 got on board the Islay steamer there, sailed down Loch 
 Tarbert, and were landed in about an hour at this house, 
 presently inhabited by the Campbells of Kilberry, to whom 
 we are consigned on a visit of three days. 
 
 The whole journey from Rothesay to this was new to 
 me, and aided by novelty, and by a calm, warm, si^lendid 
 day, it was most delightful. 
 
 The chief beauty of the sea being the land, the narrower 
 the sea the better. Therefore there can be few better 
 sails than round Bute. In themselves, most of the 
 individual features are insignificant, but it is pleasant to 
 sail through comfortable-looking Highland farms, almost 
 within the sound of the sickle, and within hand-shaking 
 of the people on the shore. The Kyles proper are far 
 more rugged and picturesque, and get so narrow and so 
 
198 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 involved in rocks, that it is frequently a puzzle to find out 
 where we are to thread next. 
 
 But Tarbert ! East Tarbert ! How is it that I had never 
 even heard of that curious little bay % I can't recollect 
 that I ever saw it mentioned in any tour. I was never 
 more surprised than in sailing into that quiet sort of a 
 natural wet dock, apparently not containing above 10 or 
 20 acres. There it lay, calm and silvery, deeply set all 
 round, except at the narrow entrance, in ridgy hills of hard 
 rock; a curve of about 20 or 30 small houses drawn 
 round the upper end, all comfortable looking, and, except 
 three houses and seven hovels, all bright with fresh white- 
 wash ; a great number of herring-boats floating at anchor, 
 with their brown, tanned sails hanging to dry ; the ruins of 
 an old castle standing on a rocky knoll at the left side of 
 the entrance, and the whole scene of peaceful and secluded 
 industry crowned by a respectable church, which looks down 
 on it from a little eminence behind the rim of habitation, 
 — a striking and beautiful spot like a scene in a theatre. 
 
 Nor had I ever heard Loch Tarbert praised, or even 
 talked of. Nevertheless, many a worse loch has excited 
 many a pen and many a pencil. It is about 10 or 12 
 miles long, perfectly straight, about a mile wide or less on 
 an average, lined by black, rocky, but not very high, hills, 
 very jagged along its whole edges by rough promontories, 
 which, however, are softened occasionally by patches of 
 cultivation ; a very picturesque piece of water. 
 
 Inveraray, Sunday Morning, 17 th Se^jf ember 1843. — 
 We remained at Ardpatrick all Tuesday, Wednesday and 
 Thursday. During these days we drove and boated, and 
 ate oatcakes and drank whisky, and slept, and were very 
 kindly treated, and by no means stinted in sleep. The 
 weather was beautiful, both under the sun and under the 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1843. 199 
 
 moon. M}^ chief pleasure was in getting up any knoll 
 from which I could see the heights of Jura. Our host's 
 property of Kilberry extends from the sea opposite Islay on 
 the west, to Loch Tarbert on the east, about 7 or 10 miles 
 or so in all. It is at present mansionless, and he must 
 build. Loch Tarbert tempts him by the finest possible 
 sites, on a range of rocky hills, covered with wood and 
 rattling with burns, and rich in little haughs and knolls, 
 all washed by the loch. Yet though he admits that that 
 is infinitely the most convenient situation, he is nearly 
 resolved to set himself down on his western extremity, 
 which consists of a bare, flat, featureless, half-reclaimed 
 moor, made only the uglier by some turnips and barley. 
 And why] Because it was the family place ! That is 
 because some savages practised rapine there 500 years ago, 
 and built what they called a castle and a religious house ; 
 of neither of which does a single organised fragment 
 now remain. I scarcely know a greater sacrifice of sense 
 to folly. 
 
 On Friday (15th) at about, one we came away in his 
 carriage to East Tarbert, thus seeing the loch by land as 
 we had formerly done by water. And we got another 
 visit to the village. I went up to the castle, which must 
 anciently have been a very large stronghold. There were 
 about 200 boats in the bay, with their tanned hanging 
 sails. And I observed, which I had not noticed before, 
 that the bay, small though it be, has three islands, one of 
 them cased in masonry, about 30 feet square and flat on 
 the top, and used for hanging nets upon over rude screens. 
 It is really a delightful nook. But the Sheriff" tells me 
 that it is a profligate place. Nonsense ! I don't believe 
 it. The brawls, which are his only facts, must proceed 
 from the stranger fishers who nestle in it. I won't believe 
 anything bad of the natives of that little Virgilian port. 
 
200 CTR CUJTJO URNE I 'S. 
 
 This Sheriff — a worthy, ugly, sensible, cart-horse of a 
 man, hideously ugly, and with a coarse, high-keyed, 
 idiotical voice, at which the very stots stare. Sir Walter 
 Scott once amazed us all by taking this strange, good, and 
 most illiterate creature to Paris with him, — the most in- 
 comprehensible fact in the history of either man. It is 
 commonly accounted for by ascribing it to Scott's great 
 neighbourly kindness, but many of the anecdotes brought 
 back by the novelist made it plain that his chief enjoy- 
 ment consisted in observing the effect of foreign things on 
 his rustic and simple associate, who seems to have glowered, 
 and munched, and to have been free in all quarters, with 
 what he meant to be French, and to have rolled his large 
 white eyes, and to have made '•' unwieldy mirth," in all 
 sorts of ways, to the poet's entire satisfaction. An English 
 lady, who had just arrived in Scotland, with her head full 
 of enthusiasm about everything Scotch, had the good 
 luck to be seated at Abbotsford next R . She hap- 
 pened to ask him the name of the stream she had seen 
 joining the Tweed. " It was the Ga-a-la, Ma-a-dam." 
 " The Gala ! Well, I am so delighted at that ! Because I 
 know the song of ' The braw (brae) lads of Gala (Gay-la) 
 Water,' and I should so like to see one of them." " Ou ! 
 joost look at me, Madam; a'm ane o' them masel'." 
 Nevertheless, there cannot be a worthier or more sensible 
 man. 
 
 We had got horses and an open carriage (for this 
 Circuit I had no carriage of my own, — it is an incumbrance 
 in this district) sent from Ardrishaig to Tarbert, and we 
 went along the western shore of Loch Fyne to Inveraray, 
 which we reached about nine at night. Knowing that it 
 would be under cloud of night that I would enter, I had 
 dispensed with the attendance of the provost and his poor 
 tail. 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1843. 201 
 
 The stage from Tarbert to Ardrishaig was the only one 
 that was new to me. And it is extremely beautiful, and 
 would be so even without the aid of such an evening as 
 we had — quite calm, the water and the sky contending in 
 unbroken blueness, and the air so soft that it was a luxury 
 to let the hands and face bathe themselves in it. I left 
 the carriage and took a look of the new house of Barmore. 
 It is Playfair's work, and seemed worthy of its author. 
 The place, too, is beautiful But I hope it is not true that 
 the house cost about £30,000, and that, after selling an 
 estate to pay it, the laird has only about £3000 a year 
 left. Probably, however, it is true, because a proprietor 
 ruining himself by too large a mansion-house is quite con- 
 formable to the Scotch practice. Malcolm of Poltalloch, 
 the Croesus of Argyle, has built a grand hotd at Ardrishaig, 
 of which the ostensible landlord is only his manager. 
 Both this village and Lochgilphead (within a mile of it) 
 looked most attractive, for they were glittering in sunshine. 
 
 The moon was rising over Inveraray as we approached it. 
 
 We had only three trifles to dispose of in Court yester- 
 day. The last trial failed by a juror's taking a fit in the 
 box while they were considering their verdict, and the 
 rest of the jury having been dismissed, as this was the 
 only remaining case, the trial could not be begun again. 
 
 At dinner we had a grand dessert of unripe fruit, brought 
 for the occasion from Glasgow, and no herrings, though 
 they were never more plentiful or better. But I never 
 come to Argyle without seeing that a herring has no 
 honour in its own country. 
 
 ^n^^k^^-EX-^, Monday Niglit, ISth Septemher 1843. — I went 
 to church at Inveraray yesterday, and had another opiate 
 from the same preacher as last April. The Provost and 
 the Sheriff of Bute are both keen Free Churchmen, and 
 
202 CIR CUIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 were very averse to countenance the Establishment, and 
 were only reconciled by my assuring them that they could 
 only be held to attend officially, which inferred no homo- 
 logation. But then they could not brook one of the two 
 ministers, who was a rat, and ought to have gone out. 
 They were told that he was from home. So they girt 
 up their loins and processed, and after being fixed in the 
 pew, their friend the rat mounted the pulpit. 
 
 After church I took a boat and came here. The day 
 was bad. 
 
 This day has been better, but not very good, and so 
 I only loitered about the shore throughout the forenoon. 
 In the evening, people are pretty independent of weather 
 wherever Lord Murray is the landlord. 
 
 We go to-morrow by Dunoon to Glasgow. 
 
 Glasgow, Tuesday Night, 19 /A Septemher 1843. — We 
 left Strachur (an open carriage and horses sent from 
 Inveraray) to-day about nine, and reached Dunoon about 
 one. The day was excellent. But no sun can make Loch 
 Eck smile. Narrow, straight, and islandless, its unvarying 
 form is seen at once, almost from end to end, without a 
 single village, and with very few houses, and little culture ; 
 it is never enlivened by sound, and its dead surface is 
 rarely broken by an oar or a sail. The large and heavy 
 mountains that line it on both sides have one-half of it 
 generally in shade, and even when the sun is in the 
 meridian, depth makes its water dark. It is beautiful, 
 but sad. 
 
 We went to Archibald Davidson's, who is living at 
 Dunoon, and remained there till half-past four, when 
 we crossed to Greenock, and were here by the railway 
 before seven. 
 
 I heard at Dunoon, for the first time, of the sudden 
 
WES T CIR C UIT—A UTUMN 1 843. 203 
 
 death of George Houston, an irrecoverable blow to his 
 family, of which he was the delight, and the last direct 
 branch. I can scarcely recollect any stroke more utterly 
 crushing than the one that has been inflicted by the early 
 and unexpected removal of this excellent young man. 
 
 BoNALY, Sunday Night, 1st October 1843. — I found 
 MoncreifF and two of his daughters in Glasgow on the 
 19th of September. Next morning we had our usual pro- 
 cession to Court, where 69 cases kept us till the evening 
 of Wednesday the 27th. The 24th being a Sunday, I 
 came here on Saturday evening, and was in Court again 
 on Monday a few minutes after ten. 
 
 When here, I received intimation of the death of my 
 old friend, George Joseph Bell, Clerk of Session, and Pro- 
 fessor of Scotch Law, and destined to be known to 
 posterity as the author of the book on Bankruptcy. His 
 death was not to be regretted, — old, blind, poor, and 
 getting poorer, and never forgetting the disgraceful treat- 
 ment which excluded him from the Bench because he would 
 not be dishonest, life for him had lost most of its attrac- 
 tions. There could not possibly be a better man, and he 
 is the greatest legal writer in Scotland next to Stair. It 
 is not, perhaps, too much to say that his work is the 
 greatest practical book on Mercantile Jurisprudence that 
 has been produced in modern times. 
 
 None of our cases were of any novelty or importance. 
 An able doctor of medicine, a clever writer in Blackwood's 
 Magazine, was transported for embezzlement, and for com- 
 posing and sending a threatening letter. I was shown 
 (after the case was over) another epistle from the same 
 powerful blackguard to his victim, in which he intimates 
 that at his trial he has nothing to do but to plead in- 
 sanity. I have little doubt that, at present, when the 
 
204 CIR C UI T JO URNE VS. 
 
 benevolent towards criminals have succeeded in raising a 
 cry against punishing any culprit who had, or says that 
 he had, a crotchet which led him to commit his offence 
 (which they call by some technical name), there are very 
 few acts of criminal malice that are not helped on by the 
 idea that this defence may be successful in the time of 
 need. 
 
 In another case an honest-looking, generous-hearted 
 Irish lad moved me greatly by repeating, and with equal 
 eloquence and feeling, the proposal of MacCombich in the 
 Court at Carlisle, that they would let him have his head 
 cut off instead of Vicli Ian Vohr. He and several of his 
 countrymen were accused of aggravated housebreaking. 
 He was acquitted, but his brother was convicted, on which 
 he entreated, with great simplicity and earnestness, that he 
 might be allowed to be transported in his brother's place. 
 He was grieved and shocked when told that this was 
 impossible, and after a parting at the bar, very painful to 
 see, they Avere separated, probably for ever ; and for the 
 moment at least he by far the most severely punished of 
 the two. The misfortune is, that, though attached to his 
 brother, his only attachment to others was to their 
 propert}^ 
 
 There has been a strong desire for years past to 
 avoid the necessity of transportation by trying long 
 imprisonments in properly regulated prisons, and the 
 whole system and apparatus of prison discipline in Scot- 
 land has been changed in order to give this benevolent 
 experiment fair play. I grieve to say that as yet the 
 results are not encouraging. Those who have come out of 
 an eighteen months' or a two years' confinement seem to 
 revert to crime, at least to crimes against property, as 
 easily as if nothing had ever been done to reform or to 
 frighten them. We had about twenty of them this Circuit 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1843. 205 
 
 at Glasgow alone ! I don't see how it can be otherwise, 
 so long as convicts are turned out after their term is over, 
 without money, or character, or master. The proposal 
 now is to let them emigrate at the public expense. And 
 I am clear for getting them out of this country in as great 
 numbers as possible. But it may be easily foreseen that 
 even this voluntary emigration won't tempt those who have 
 once fairly tasted the sweets of a life of thieving. Every 
 other criminal, except probably a coiner and a poacher, 
 there may be hope of, and possibly even of a first thief. 
 But after a second conviction shows that stealing has 
 become a trade, be he or she old, middle-aged or young, 
 I don't at present believe that reformation is possible. 
 Simply because the sport of thieving, in its various forms, 
 is the most irresistible of all pastimes. What have the 
 moors equal to it? No licence to pay for, no permission 
 to ask, no close time, total idleness, great risk, frequent 
 success, constant excitement, a community of their own, 
 the whole public their preserve, the delight of eluding the 
 law, and the many chances of escape even after being caught 
 trespassing. If anything could be required to whet the 
 appetite for this game, it would be its contrast with the 
 dulness of a good prison recently left. I hope I 'm wrong, 
 but if there be a thoroughly reformed, twice-convicted 
 thief, I would rather pay a shilling to see him than to see 
 any other wonder in any living show. 
 
 Our Advocate-Depute was Mark Napier, the biographer 
 of the discoverer of the logarithms, and author of other good 
 Scotch works. He is better known as an author than as 
 a counsel, but he is a sensible, industrious, amiable man, 
 and Moncreiff and I agreed that we had never seen the 
 business better done. 
 
 I came here on Thursday (28th) forenoon, somewhat 
 stricken with cold, and have been mostly in bed till uow. 
 
20C CIR C UIT jo URNE YS. 
 
 I read nothing except some articles in the new Quarterly. 
 
 It will be long before I can cease wondering at the folly 
 of the Butes in not removing Rothesay when this was 
 possible, and laying out their money, and such taste as 
 they had, upon a place near its present site. They would 
 have had finer prospects, an old historical ruin, better 
 shelter, and might have brought Loch Fad and some 
 others within their grounds. At present the lochs are lost. 
 
 There is a passage, I think, in one of Scott's novels in 
 which he makes somebody, who is lamenting the encroach- 
 ments of civilisation on Highland solitudes say, but only 
 as an extreme result, that he should not wonder if the 
 mail-coach horn should one day be heard in Glencoe. 
 Alas, alas ! it has been heard all this summer. A 
 romantic tourist pinched for time can now be hurried 
 from Fort William to Edinburgh in one not long day. 
 A coach left Fort William all this season at about six in 
 the morning, and after blowing away to Ballachulish, up 
 Glencoe to Kingshouse, and from thence to Tyndrum, 
 and down Glenfalloch to Tarbet, which it reached about 
 two, its passengers could get into a steamer there and 
 reach Glasgow in time for the five o'clock train, which 
 landed them at Edinburgh about seven. Spirits of Fingal 
 and of Rob Roy ! what say ye to this 1 
 
GLASGOW CIRCUIT. 
 
 Winter 1844. 
 
 BoNALY, 8th January 1844. — I left Edinburgh by the 
 half-past seven o'clock train on Tuesday last, the 2d, and 
 was in time for the Winter Circuit procession at ten. 
 Medwyn was my colleague. The job lasted till Saturday 
 evening the 6th, sitting generally from nine till about 
 eight. There were 64 cases, and we left not one untried 
 that the prosecutor could proceed with. 
 
 My strolls, whether before breakfast or after dinner, 
 being all in the dark and generally under heavy rain, I 
 saw nothinii-. 
 
 The cases were a mass of commonplace trash. 
 
 It seems to me to augur worse and worse for the effect 
 of long imprisonments. We had about twelve thieves, all 
 of whom had been imprisoned by the Court of Jiisticiary for 
 at least one year, and several more on whom the bene- 
 volence of long and religious incarceration had been wasted 
 by Sheriffs. I suppose that, including the last Spring and 
 Autumn Circuits at Glasgow, I have seen about fifty such 
 cases in the last ten months. One handsome-looking 
 young woman, called Mary Boyle, had been in the Peni- 
 tentiary at Perth, the very school of penal virtue, and had 
 come out with a great character, a thoroughly reformed 
 creature, their best swatch. Well, after being a month 
 free, and employed, she engages in a daring burglary with 
 a gang of male villains ; and then on being sentenced to 
 
 2U7 
 
20S C/R C UI r JO URNE YS. 
 
 transportation threw off in an instant the decorous air 
 which had made people first doubt the evidence, and then 
 pity her, and broke out into a paroxysm of the most 
 cordial fury I ever saw at the bar; cursing prosecutor, 
 judges, jury, her own counsel, and all concerned, in the 
 coarsest terms, and in the manner of the best brimstone, 
 and dealing effective blows on all the enemies within her 
 reach, not omitting even the poor macer, who had had 
 nothing to do with it. But crime — nay, the particular sort 
 of it — runs in families like everything else, and this lady 
 belongs to a race of thieves. She has a father and mother 
 and two brothers or sisters already in Australia, and the 
 only two that remain have already gone through what 
 seems to be the first stage of the transporting process — a 
 short imprisonment. It is to be hoped that the strength 
 of the hereditary tendency saves the reputation of Perth. 
 
 I was struck with two copies of the printed indictments 
 which had been served on two lads, incorrigible and now 
 transported thieves. One of them was covered with 
 verse, partly from Burns, and partly original, the last 
 better than any jail verse I ever saw, all about his sad 
 separation from " Betsy." The other was adorned by the 
 pencil, the drawings (by quill) describing the artist's own 
 feats, particularly the one which, added to many others, 
 was taken advantage of to get him out of the country, 
 picking the pocket of a tall gentleman whose nose was in 
 the skies, while the boy and his comrades were dealing 
 with the tails of his coat. It was a very spirited sketch. 
 
 A Lanarkshire Justice of Peace was examined in two 
 cases of bigamy, who admitted that he carried on a sort 
 of trade of receiving declarations of marriage, for which 
 he was paid by half-crowns, which failing, by drams, 
 and that he believed that he might have done so 100 times 
 in one year. We, as recommended by the jury, referred 
 
GLASGOW CIRCUIT— WINTER 1844. 209 
 
 his case to the Lord Advocate, who happened to be in 
 Glasgow, and next day a register, which the Justice stated 
 that he had kept, was got, from which it appeared that in 
 the last ten years he had married above 1200 pairs! 
 Whether he will be allowed to marry any more or not 
 
 will be seen. Meanwhile his name is Hugh , 
 
 and such a number of irregular marriages, not over all 
 Scotland, but in one place and by one man, is a curious 
 fact in reference to the law, and to the habits of the people 
 of Scotland. 
 
 David Mure (Caldwell) was our Public Accuser ; a most 
 excellent youth, well educated, judicious, gentle without 
 weakness, and firm without any intemperance, incapable 
 of being misled by professional keenness into any want of 
 candour, and, in feelings as well as manners, a gentleman. 
 He is one of the Tories at our Bar who ought to have 
 been a Whig. He is one in reality, although he does not 
 know it. 
 
 Thank God, no other Court will ever be held in the 
 abominable internal structure which, for above thirty years, 
 has disgraced Glasgow, and impeded the administration of 
 justice, to say nothing of its smiting judges, who were 
 exposed to its bitterest gale, with lumbago, sciatica, and 
 all manner of colds. The wit of no devil could devise a 
 more atrocious composition. Posterity will scarcely believe 
 that so recently as about the year 1810, a large sum was 
 expended in a great city on a Courthouse so constructed 
 that the judges sat (literally) on the top of a staircase, and 
 separated from the street only by a folding door, that their 
 only room for robing or taking refreshment was a closely 
 adjoining water-closet, that there was not a single apart- 
 ment of any kind for counsel, or anybody, except two, that 
 were got for the occasion each Circuit, one for the jury to 
 be enclosed in, and one of about 15 feet square, for as 
 
 
 
2 1 CIR C UIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 many of perhaps 1000 witnesses as could be squeezed into 
 it without respect to age, sex, or station, and that for all 
 concerned, except judges, and witnesses, and prisoners, 
 that is, for counsel, agents, jurymen, and mob coming and 
 going, there was only one door, and it placed at the greatest 
 attainable distance from the greatest number of people. 
 This cursed door made the Court just a street. There was 
 a constant stream of jostling comers in and goers out, 
 whose noise, from tongue and from feet, the thumbscrew 
 itself could not have checked. The Court is still to be 
 held in the same place, but totally changed in all its 
 arrangements. How these will turn out will be seen in 
 September. A good Court-room must have innumerable 
 apartments close at hand, a separate place, and each place 
 with a separate access, for each class of the members of the 
 Court, judges, counsel, agents, jurors, witnesses, and dis- 
 tinguished spectators, and though there ought to be due 
 and comfortable accommodation for the public, it is an error 
 to suppose that it is necessary to admit the whole public 
 at once. 
 
 Of all the judicial spectators in Scotland, those of 
 Glasgow are the worst. They are the least attentive, and 
 by far the most vulgar. But I observe that the attention 
 is always in proportion to the facility of hearing. 
 
 The only bad fact that I know for the new Court is, 
 that John Hope has taken the chief charge of the plan, 
 and declares it to be perfect. 
 
NOHTH CIRCUIT. 
 
 Spring 1844. 
 
 DuNKELD, Monday y 15th April 1844, M^R— North 
 again, after two years' interval. Creeffy is to be my col- 
 league ; my daughter Elizabeth, and my niece Mary 
 Fullerton, my companions. 
 
 Meaning to proceed the whole way by the ordinary old 
 road, I can have nothing to say. 
 
 We left Edinburgh this morning at eight, and were here 
 by four. Rain, of course, over Kinross-shire, but every- 
 where else, a respectable Scotch spring day. 
 
 Dunkeld never looks so well as in the evening, and 
 particularly in its approach from the south ; it was ex- 
 tremely beautiful to-dn}'-. Spring is much more advanced 
 here than it is about Edinburgh, and there are few places 
 where spring is more pleasingly marked. The gardens, 
 and villas, and cottages, and cultivated haughs, for about 
 two miles down the Tay, were all in the most perfect order, 
 dry, weeded and sown; and, by bursting larches, fresh 
 green hedges, and daffodils, made delightful to old and 
 to young. 
 
 I made an inward vow last time I was here never 
 again to degrade myself by entering the grounds of 
 Dunkeld, as if I were a maniac and his keeper. But 
 the girls having never seen the place, I was obliged to 
 go through the ceremonies for their sakes. The velvet 
 walk up the river is certainly very fine. AVe went into 
 
 211 
 
212 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 the cathedral, which I had not done for many years. Its 
 keeping — absolutely within the ducal shrubbery — is most 
 disgraceful. Letting one end of it be made into the parish 
 church, and the other into the parish burying-ground, is 
 scandalous, but perfectly natural, for it saves the heritors 
 from providing other accommodation. The worthy lady 
 who showed the cathedral apologised by saying that it 
 had always been so — at least ever since the Eeformation. 
 Dunkeld having been one of the Catholic religious edifices, 
 for the cleansing of which from all vestiges of popery 
 there was a special order, this is possibly true. But what 
 defence is it to dukes who can afford to give £5000 a 
 year of their estate to the deer % 
 
 Kingussie, Tuesday, 16th April 1844, Night — Left 
 Dunkeld this morning at ten, and reached this at seven. 
 
 A day of dull leaden clouds, but calm and dry. 
 
 We walked through most of the Pass, and gave nearly 
 an hour to the Falls of the Bruar. These falls were beauti- 
 ful, even though not yet embowered by Burns's foliage. 
 The ravines through which the water tumbles are so 
 narrow in proportion to the size of the stream, that there 
 can never be any apparent deficiency of water. 
 
 It was (at least in this late spring) a month too soon 
 for the Pass. The whole valley from Dunkeld to Blair 
 loses half its glories in being leafless. And of all trees 
 the birch, especially when seen in masses, on a slope, from 
 the whiteness of its stem, reminds us the most of the 
 absence of its leaves. Some of the hillsides looked, to-day, 
 as if they had been stuck full of white-painted poles. 
 There was very little of a spring feeling either on 
 branches or on fields, or in the air. A thrush — the only 
 bird that we heard — attempting a note, struck us all. 
 Drumochter was heavy with clouds, and with innumerable 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT -SPRING 1S44. 213 
 
 patches of snow. But after getting a little down the Spey- 
 ward descent, we came again to a milder and clearer 
 region. My admiration of this whole, long, solitary track, 
 especially after actually reaching the Spey, and returning 
 to rock and birch, increases every time I see it. 
 
 My old friend the inn of Pitmain I found converted 
 into a farm-house, and we are now in the Gm'don Arms 
 Hotel at Kingussie, with the loudest bells and the strongest 
 teethed rats I have ever encountered. Old Pitmain ! an 
 abominable hostel, but it had served the public, I suppose, 
 at least one hundred years, and all this time had received 
 that sort of welcome which is given by a vessel in distress 
 to the only port it has to repair to. In the days in which 
 the traveller had to pass two nights on the road between 
 Edinburgh and Inverness, even when going by the fastest 
 public coach, Pitmain was his second house of refuge. 
 And what a scene ! when the enormous vehicle disgorged 
 a cargo of beasts, clean and unclean, greater than what 
 loaded the ark, and, knowing by experience the advantage 
 of first possession, every monster rushed in and seized 
 whatever he could lay his claws upon — meat, drink, the seat 
 next the fire, the best room, the best bed — and awkward- 
 ness or timidity were left to shiver or starve ! The 
 moment of the arrival was quite well known, yet the 
 savages of the house, partly from Sawney's natural want of 
 tidiness, and partly from knowing that they had the 
 defenceless wretches in their power, never had anything 
 ready or arranged, but considered the hubbub as showing 
 the importance of the house. Yet the merriest night 
 I ever had was there — with Macbean and Dr. Gordon — 
 the evening before the breakfast at the Bridge of Carr. 
 It was on that night that an experienced quartermaster, 
 who was missing at the public supper, was found to have 
 secured himself a bed by having taken real, corporeal, 
 
214 CIK CUITJO UKNE YS. 
 
 and actual possession of the first that came, dremlied hut 
 undressed, and having thus appropriated the prize by 
 spoiling it for anybody else, ate his morsel and drank his 
 jorum as he lay in peace, leaving one dry and well-fed 
 fellow-traveller, who had been sneering during his damp 
 friend's cramming, to sleep on the floor. 
 
 Inverness, Thursday, ISth April 1844, NigltL—We left 
 Kingussie on Wednesday about ten ; got to the Frasers at 
 Laggan, four miles beyond Inverness, at five ; dined there ; 
 and came here before twelve at night. 
 
 I have nothing more to say ; for the course is unchanged, 
 and I have said it all already. Yesterday was a beautiful 
 day, more sunny than cloudy; rain we don't dream of; and 
 the air was soft. And these Cairngorms ! I got out of the 
 chaise, without stopping it, by the [front] window, and sat 
 (as I often do) for an hour or so, after leaving Aviemore, 
 on the cap box, and gazed at them for the twentieth time 
 in undiminished delight. There were parts of the road 
 from which the whole plain between us and the base of the 
 hills lay visibly below us. The larch was only in its 
 brown, bud-bursting state; but its leaflessness left the 
 heather visible, which, though not in flower, brightened 
 the dark verdure of the Scotch fir. Through that sea of 
 pines, the blue, full Spey was sweeping ; and beyond stood 
 that noble range of mountains, singularly marked by corries 
 and valleys, variegated by streaks, and patches, and fields 
 of snow, of all sizes, positions, and forms, all softening 
 under a mild southern air, the unsnowed parts standing 
 out in deeper darkness ; the whole masses clear to their 
 very summits, but hovered over by racks of gorgeous 
 clouds, which seemed as if anxious to show that they could 
 be as magnificent as the solid matter before them. 
 
 The prospect of the Moray Firth and the coast of Ross- 
 
NOR TH CIR C UIT— SPRING 1 844 . 215 
 
 shire, from the height between Inverness and Freeburn was 
 as good as ill-placed but (thank God) ill-growing larches 
 allow. It is a very fine scene. But I can't say that I 
 discover the resemblance between it and any views I have 
 ever seen of the Bay of Naples, with which the worthy 
 people here are very apt to compare it. No two things 
 can be less like, except that there 's salmon in both. But 
 every beautiful sea view in Scotland is said to be like the 
 Bay of Naples. The Firth of Forth is, and the Firth of 
 Clyde, and many parts of the Solway, and above all, Loch 
 Lomond is. Except in climate some of them are perhaps 
 better, but the habit of comparing them is a mere homage 
 to the fame of Na2)les. 
 
 There is a strange wild place called Glen Truim on the 
 left hand (going north), between Dalwhinnie and Kingussie, 
 the progress of which I have been marking since ever it 
 began a few years ago. It is the work of a Major 
 Macplierson, an Indian officer, I believe, who, no doubt 
 from his having run about in a torn kilt here in his youth, 
 has adventured on the rather bold attempt to make a 
 habitable residence in apparently the most savage position 
 of the whole strath. Everybody laughs at him, and he 
 has certainly set his mansion too high ; but since he has 
 courage to begin, and to live there, I predict its one day 
 being a fine and not uncomfortable highland place. It 
 Avill depend entirely on the wood he will be able to coax 
 into life. 
 
 KiLRAVOCK, Sunday, 2 1st April 1844, ladf-past 7 a.m. — 
 We finished our insignificant dozen of cases on the evening 
 of Friday the 19th. 
 
 Next morning (yesterday), Moncreiff" and I went to 
 inspect a road on the estate of Leys, in reference to a civil 
 cause, and saw what is called " The Druidical Temple," 
 
216 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 said to be the most complete remains of one of these con- 
 structions in the north of Scotland. I never saw one 
 anywhere (but I have not seen Stonehenge) so entire. It 
 consists of the usual outer and inner circles of large stones. 
 One of the outer stones is about 8 or 1 2 feet high ; the 
 rest are lower, but not perhaps less, for they are mostly 
 large lumps. Both circles are nearly entire ; and if the 
 owner would only clean them, so as to let them be dis- 
 tinctly seen, they would be very striking; especially as 
 their position on a knoll, with a very good prospect from 
 it, is excellent. But they are half-buried in whins, and 
 open to all cattle. 
 
 Moncreiff and his two daughters went yesterday to 
 Fochabers. We came here. 
 
 I am sorry that I did not stop within two or three 
 miles of this, and walk up to Dalcross — seemingly a 
 good ruined castle — standing on a table-land eminence, 
 with a good view of the Moray Firth. But laziness, or 
 indifference at the moment, is the sin which besets some 
 travellers, of which they are always sure to repent after it 
 is too late. 
 
 After looking about this place, which has for fifteen 
 years been tenanted by Mrs. Campbell and her daughter — 
 English people — we were driven by Miss Campbell, a great 
 equestrian in all forms, to Cawdor Castle, about two and 
 a half miles off. It is a long time since I saw it. There 
 is a deal of good wood, and everything about the place has 
 a secluded rustic air. But the castle is the thing. And 
 a strong, venerable castle it is, well situated, a little above 
 the Cawdor, a respectable stream ; and if living poverty 
 of purse and of spirit had been kept away, time and Shake- 
 speare would have dignified all about it, inside and out. 
 But, these miserable nobles ! The edifice, though 
 pretended to be still maintained as a place of residence, 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1844. 217 
 
 is all in the most Iminiliating condition of paltry disrepair. 
 There are a number of curious, old, clumsy, carved stone 
 chimney-pieces, and there was probably one in every room 
 formerly. But the peer has repaired several of the apart- 
 ments, among the rest the one which has the reputation of 
 having had Duncan murdered in it. And such repara- 
 tions ! New floors — quite right. Cleaned walls — quite 
 right. But such floors ! and such cleaning ! Fir deals 
 ill-laid by the village carpenter; size by the village 
 painter ; furniture by the village upholsterer ; the old 
 chimney-pieces taken aicay, and bits of plank and plaster put 
 into their places. Yes, the carved chimney-piece which 
 saw Macbeth stab Duncan has been probably broken for 
 a dyke and replaced by Is. 6d. worth of ill-sawed larch 
 and bad Cawdor plaster. The whole castle is in the same 
 scandalous style of bad taste and beggarly penury. There 
 is no Findhorn fishcurer or Nairn grocer who would not 
 have done it better. 
 
 The parish church close by is one of the very best (out- 
 side) in Scotland. Part of it is plainly in its old state of 
 Catholic village architecture. Corstorphine, however, is 
 better. 
 
 We dined yesterday at this place, and are still here. I 
 had been long wishing to see Kilravock, which I had 
 never heard described except as an interesting old place ; 
 and I have not been disappointed. 
 
 The castle, as they call everything here, consists of 
 a square tower about four centuries old, with the usual 
 later, but still not very modern, additions. They all 
 harmonise well enough ; not the worse that the maker 
 of each addition never thought whether it would har- 
 monise or not, but left them all to make the most of it. 
 The tower is perfect. High, massive, plain, no regular 
 window in it, but only a very few little holes : a small 
 
218 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 round turret in a sort of lialf relief" at the top of each 
 corner, and a steep-roofed house on the summit. 
 
 All this is placed — not on a rod: as I had been told — 
 for there is no rock in the place, but on the edge of a 
 hank about fifty or seventy feet above the river Nairn, 
 which flows through an unpicturesque valley below. It 
 is a good position, and, seen from the valley, the building 
 looks admirably. It is an excellent house inside, with no 
 want of broad wooden stairs, queer closets, and old family 
 pictures. 
 
 Close beside the house, at one end, there is a most 
 beautiful flower-garden — unwalled, and unhedged, but 
 surrounded by a cheap trellis fence. The spaces for the 
 flowers are cut in the usual way, and in all forms, out of 
 the turf; and there is a good mixture of evergreens and 
 trees. This garden, like everything else about the place, 
 is in perfect keeping, and there are a number of very 
 fine trees — walnut, chestnut, oak, etc. In an admirable 
 wood of about eighty acres, full of heather and juniper, 
 and undergrowth of all kinds, there are a number of the 
 mry finest Scotch firs I have ever seen. They are spread 
 and tossed about in the branches like forest trees, and have 
 the true, but rare, bright brown barks, on which the 
 slanting rays of the evening sun were shining beautifully. 
 
 Altogether it is an interesting place, even as we saw it, 
 nearly leafless. AVhen the trees are out it must be 
 excellent. 
 
 We have had the kindest possible reception, and passed 
 a quiet but merry evening yesterday. When I observed 
 that one and a half bottles of wine far more than sufficed 
 for four ladies and three gentlemen, I could not help 
 thinking of the very different days that the tower had 
 seen. For it was at Kilravock, as old Heniy Mackenzie, 
 who was related to the family, used to tell, that a sort of 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1844. 219 
 
 household officer was kept, whose duty was to prevent the 
 drunk guests from choking. Mackenzie was once at a 
 festival there, towards the close of which the exhausted 
 topers sank gradually back and down on their chairs, till 
 little of them was seen above the table except their noses ; 
 and at last they disappeared altogether, and fell on the 
 floor. Those who were too far gone to rise lay still there 
 from necessity \ while those who, like the Man of Feeling, 
 were glad of a pretence for escaping, fell into a doze from 
 policy. While Mackenzie was in this state, he was 
 alarmed by feeling a hand working about his throat, and 
 called out. A voice answered, " Dinna be feared, sir ; it 's 
 me." " And who the devil are you "? " " ^ 'm the, lad that 
 louses (looses) the neckcloths." 
 
 Fochabers, Sunclcuj, 2 1st April IS 4:4:, Night. — We left 
 Kilravock to-day about half-past ten, and reached this by 
 six ; a beautiful spring day. 
 
 We first went to Forres, seventeen miles. Walked 
 through the silent city ; went to the Pillar ; called on the 
 Tokes, who are- at Colonel Fraser's villa — all at church, 
 and the house without a servant ; so, after loud and vain 
 ringing, we pinned our cards to the door and retired. 
 
 I then fulfilled a vow I had often made, and often 
 broken, never to be in this quarter again without seeing 
 Pluscarden. We went four miles round, and saw the 
 abbey on our way to Elgin, by an excellent road. 
 
 It is in a more paltry situation than most old religious 
 houses, beside shabby hills — modern larch wood, no rock, 
 and no water beyond a bad muddy rill. 
 
 But it is a most beautiful ruin, — not large, but well 
 proportioned, and its whole original structure distinctly 
 shown. Placed on a well-kept lawn, it would be an 
 exquisite relic. The main square tower is mellowed by a 
 
220 CIR CUIT JO Uk'NE VS. 
 
 reddish lichen which combines excellently with the fresh 
 ivy. But this ivy. if not kept in order, will soon eat up 
 the whole concern. 
 
 But what a mercy it is that Lord Fife became bankrupt 
 some years ago ! Long may he continue so ! An old abbey 
 still in adequate preservation may, innocently, and even 
 with good taste, be kept up as a residence, if this be done 
 properly. But this poor, insensible, ignorant wretch was 
 making Pluscarden into a shooting -box ! He had got a great 
 part of it roofed and slated, and several portions cut into 
 two stories, and new floored, and made comfortable with 
 register stoves. The jambs for his kitchen range are put 
 up. In another year the monster would have had sports- 
 men and lacqueys drinking and snoring and smoking in 
 Pluscarden Ahhey! But Providence interfered. It is in exe- 
 crable taste, though not just so execrable, that he allowed 
 a part of the abbey to be fitted up and used as a preaching- 
 place. And since he made up his mind to do so, why 
 could he not have got it done properly ! Even the presence, 
 nay, the being actually surrounded by, the pillars and 
 arches, and tall windows of a beautiful Gothic building, 
 cannot seduce a Scotch laird, even when still solvent, to 
 abate his paltriness and abominations. The modern 
 chapel, though used every Sunday, would be scunnered at 
 by any congregation of pigs. 
 
 However, give the devil his due ; he has done one thing 
 well. He had given the use of this chapel as a relief to 
 the parish of Elgin. The minister went out. But his 
 lordship, who is tolerant of dissent, lets him and his people 
 continue ; and it is now a chapel of the Free Church. 
 
 We passed an hour amidst the ruins of Elgin, Since I 
 was last there, the Woods and Forests have preserved two 
 important fragments of the building by judicious, but 
 rather smooth, under propping. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1844. 221 
 
 No epitaph for John Shanks yet. I believe I shall 
 make and set up one myself. 
 
 I found the following epitaph to-day, which is new to 
 me at least : — 
 
 Heir is the burial-place 
 Apointed for John Geddes, glover, 
 Burges in Elgin, and Issobel 
 Mckeian, his spouse, and their 
 Relations. 
 
 This world is a cite 
 Ful of streets. 
 And Death is the mereat 
 That all men meets. 
 If lyfe were a thing 
 That monie could 
 Buy, the poor could 
 Not live, and the rich 
 AVould not die. 
 
 On coming away I overheard Mary Fullerton saying, 1 
 thought to herself, " What a shame that these things " (old 
 cathedrals, she meant) " should have been seen entire by 
 people long ago and not by us." A just and natural remark. 
 But I don't see how they could have been ijreserved in 
 ORDER, under Presbytery. 
 
 Our evening here has been distinguished by a most 
 diverting theological discussion between her and Moncreiff. 
 He is a stern Presbyterian, and a resolute adherent of the 
 Free Church; she an Episcopalian and a Puseyite, and 
 of course with no horror of Catholicism. The subjects 
 handled were Puseyism and Episcopacy as against the 
 Free and Presbytery — the worship of angels — the ex- 
 pediency of a liturgy — the propriety of prescribing set 
 forms of prayer, and excluding all others — and the merits 
 of the Bishop of Exeter. In confidence in their own views, 
 and contempt of all other opinions, they were pretty well 
 
222 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 matclied, but the gentle firmness, and calm brevity of the 
 young lady, had a conspicuous advantage over the 
 vehement dogmatism of the learned lord, who in vain 
 attempted to crush the weaker vessel by mere texts with 
 his own construction put upon them. None of the three 
 listeners, who formed the public, gave the slightest inter- 
 ruption, except when I roared with laughter, which the 
 combatants Avere too keenly occupied to notice. 
 
 Aberdeen, Monday Night, 22d Ajjril 1844. — We came 
 here to-day at five, by Huntly, from Fochabers. A bright 
 day. I adhere to my admiration of Aberdonian skill and 
 obstinacy in subjugating nature to their will. 
 
 Arbroath, Friday Night, 2Qth A^ml 1844. — We left 
 Aberdeen to-day at eleven, and, in spite of many pauses, 
 were here at six. 
 
 We were in Court most part of Tuesday, Wednesday, 
 and Thursday. Nothing particular. Bad thefts, and plenty 
 transportations, but no glorious murder. No earl's son of 
 worth and irregularity, of great courage and beauty, 
 and abominably used by an old hunks of a father, or a 
 vindictive stepmother, driven to forgery, by the necessity 
 of protecting a clergyman's daughter, whom he had deceived. 
 No theatrical apprentice despising honesty, and delighting 
 the club by his account of his cheating his master. 
 None, in short, of the poetry of crime ; all prosaic theft — 
 aggravated by housebreaking, habit and repute, and previous 
 conviction. The truth is that the suppression of the 
 gallows deprives modern Courts of half their charm. I did 
 not keep an exact list ; but, out of twenty thieves, I have 
 no doubt that at least twelve had been formerly convicted 
 in the Justiciary, and had all laughed at long imprison- 
 ment. So far as thieves are concerned, it plainly won't do. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1844. 223 
 
 I retract, or at least qualify, much of what I have 
 formerly insinuated against Aberdeen. It is an admirable 
 provincial capital ; and to strangers, who necessarily see 
 only the smiling surface of things, a kind, cheerful, and 
 happy place, though, no doubt, it has its miseries and 
 dissensions. 
 
 Their cross is now settled in its 'new site at the upper 
 end of Castle Street, — all repaired. It is now the hand- 
 somest thing of the kind that I know of in Scotland. 
 
 A statue has also been erected in Castle Street, and near 
 the cross, in honour of a late Duke of Gordon; a base 
 and despicable, but, from manner, rather a popular fellow. 
 It is of grey granite, the design by Campbell. A bad 
 statue, but still very ornamental of a street. There are 
 two parties in Aberdeen, one praising, the other abusing, 
 its position. It is a little too high up the street, but, on 
 the whole, the railers could not show me any site that was 
 not clearly worse. So far as I am aware of, this is the 
 first granite statue in Scotland. And, whatever such a 
 statue may effect for the general decoration of a city, for 
 sculpture as exhibiting the human figure I don't think it 
 will do. The freckled face, if the granite be grey, or the 
 pimijled or blotched face, if it be red, are insuperable objec- 
 tions. This duke's visage looks as if it had been rubbed 
 over with oatmeal. The pedestal is too thin. 
 
 Steell had made me promise to see and to report upon 
 his lately erected statue in white marble of Provost Blaikie 
 — reverenced in Aberdeen as a citizen and magistrate. 
 It stands in the vestibule of the West Church, and is very 
 respectable, though for £1000 sculpture can't be expected 
 to yield its finest fruits. 
 
 This church, or rather the building which contains 
 it and another church, has been excellently repaired; 
 and including its burial-ground and handsome facade 
 
224 CIR C UI T JO URNE YS. 
 
 of u railing along the street, is a great honour '^'^ ^^^^ 
 place. 
 
 I was much struck with the view, from the bridge dow]^ 
 towards the infirmary, of a rude cathedral-looking mass, 
 which contains three Free Churches. Seen from that 
 distance, it has really a tolerably Gothic air. 
 
 I visited Mrs. Elmslie's Orphan Hospital ; a vl^\n insti- 
 tution, founded, and as yet managed, by a living lady of 
 this name. The edifice is greatly admired by the natives. 
 They say, among other things, and I think truly, that it 
 is the best specimen they have of the possible fineness of 
 jointing the granite. But still it is clear that granite must 
 always join ill, unless its edges be polished, as they never 
 will be for architecture. The tidiness of the whole estab- 
 lishment, outside and in, was perfect. It was satis- 
 factory to learn that they meant to avoid the usual folly 
 of rearing these poor destitute creatures for governesses 
 and other fine things, and were training them as domestic 
 servants. It struck me as likely to be an excellent place 
 to get a servant from, and I asked the matron to show me 
 the one who, by first reaching sixteen, would be first turned 
 out. She sent for the girl, aged fourteen, who appeared, 
 with a sensible Aberdeen face, her stout arms bare, and all 
 glowing from washing a stair. They intend to receive boys 
 hereafter, but at present have only about twenty orphan girls. 
 
 I also visited a set of rickety garrets in which a school 
 was taught on an excellent principle. It was solely for 
 the children of the poorest of the poor, who, without this 
 aid, would beg and go to ruin. They take them all in 
 who choose to submit to the condition that, after coming 
 there in the morning, they don't get out till the evening, 
 when they depart to their homes, such as they may be. 
 They are taught to read, write, work, and sing. They get 
 three meals daily — two of porridge and one of broth and 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1S44. 225 
 
 meat. This is produced at 2jd. — yes, at two pence half- 
 2)611711/ — ahead per day ; and of this the children's work 
 repays about one-half, and the balance, if there be any, 
 goes to themselves. The result is that these infants (for 
 they keep none after fourteen, I think) of raggedness get 
 education, heat, and food, and pocket yearly from 20s. to 
 40s. I don't suppose that any establishment ever cost 
 less. The master of the working department, who seemed 
 to me like an ordinary labourer, gets but 12s. a week. 
 Nothing with the object of preventing juvenile delinquency 
 seems ever to succeed, but this seems as plausibly calculated 
 for it as anything. 
 
 The market, which I left in spring 1842 just about to 
 be opened, is now in full operation. It has its defects — 
 the chief being that the tables are all of lousy-looking 
 wood instead of pure stone ; but in spite of all this, it is 
 by far the grandest covered market, or rather bazaar, in 
 Scotland. Nor has Scotland such a fountain. But, like 
 many other concerns which benefit the public, it does not 
 reward the subscribers. 
 
 The girls had two dances, which I honoured. Both 
 excellent, easy, merry parties, with abundance of liquid 
 and of solid refreshment, and got up in a style of offhand 
 readiness, good humour, and success, which certainly could 
 not be imitated in Edinburgh. 
 
 This has been a charming day. The sea, both in the 
 distance and in the bays which so indent this eastern 
 coast, has been beautiful, and all the little beach-placed 
 sea-towns looked calm and respectable. 
 
 We crossed a field by a footpath, which distinctly 
 invites the traveller, and got to Dunnottar. But strong 
 gates prevented all access without the key ; and the key, 
 we found, was kept in Stonehaven ! We saw the general 
 nature and position of the castle ; and I, who had been in 
 
 P 
 
226 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 it before, think I did not deceive my companions when I 
 consoled them by saying that the interior was nothing. 
 It is the strange, savage, sea-girt pedestal of pudding-stone 
 that is the wonder. 
 
 Arbroath, Saturday Forenoon^ 21th Aijril 1844. — 
 Another day of blue sky and of still bluer sea, both varie- 
 gated, however, by passing clouds. 
 
 We have been to the cliffs, the abbey, and the harbour. 
 All excellent. 
 
 But Fairport is getting too large and too public. It 
 was a nice respectable place while little and secluded. 
 But, like all spots of the kind that they touch, the railway 
 has smote it. It is now within half an hour of Dundee, 
 the palace of Scotch blackguardism, unless perhaps Paisley 
 be entitled to contest this honour with it. And I grieve 
 to say that wherever we have been between Edinburgh 
 and Inverness, the aspiration is for steam. Every town 
 worships the volatile god. I venture to predict that if I 
 be on the North Circuit in 1854 (alas, alas!) I shall be 
 able to go the whole of it without horses. The effect of 
 the railways in drawing people, all by fixed routes, to 
 fixed stations, is, so far, good. It clears the country of 
 them, and, in some places, leaves Nature more to herself. 
 But it also extinguishes inns, and pours greater mobs over 
 such glens, and lochs, and rocks as happen to be within 
 the reach of a steamer or an omnibus. 
 
 Meanwhile, Arbroath is what they call rapidly advancing, 
 that is, its steam-engine chimney-stacks are multiplying. 
 But its old character is disappearing. 
 
 And so we will be off in a little by its railway to the 
 said Dundee, from whence, having to-morrow free, I mean 
 to pass on and meditate amidst the fragments of St. 
 Andrews. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1844. 227 
 
 St. Andrews, Sunday Night, 2Sth April 1844. — And a 
 delightful meditation it has been. We got here yesterday 
 in time to mount St. Regulus, which soon gives a stranger 
 an idea of the whole place, and to view the cathedral ; and 
 I have passed the whole of this, the day of peace, amidst 
 the relics and the scenery of this singular spot. Both days 
 have been beautiful. 
 
 I have only been twice here before, and am thankful 
 that I had utterly forgotten everything about it, except its 
 general character. The first time was about thirty-two 
 years ago, when I came as counsel before the presbytery 
 for Principal Playfair, under the scandalous persecution by 
 which his old age was troubled ; a persecution carried on 
 in the name of the local Church Court, but suggested, 
 kept up, and conducted solely by his rival principal, 
 George Hill, the most graceful and externally elegant, but 
 the meanest of political priests. I never abused any 
 man with such cordiality as I did him for about four 
 years. Professor Fergusson, then in his 90th year, lived 
 here at that period, with whose family I was very intimate. 
 He was then the most monumental of living men. A fine 
 countenance, long milk-white hair, g-ey eyes, nearly sight- 
 less, a bare, deeply gullied throat gave him the appearance 
 of an antique cast of this world, while an unclouded 
 intellect, and a strong spirit, savoured powerfully of the 
 next. 
 
 My next visit here was a few years after this — I can't 
 remember exactly when — but I came to see some priory 
 acres, about which there was a litigation. I only stayed 
 one evening. And on neither occasion had I time to see, 
 or leisure to feel, the place. 
 
 I have now, partly alone, and partly with Professor 
 Jackson, seen and felt it all, outside and inside. 
 
 There is no single spot in Scotland equally full of historical 
 
228 CIR C UIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 interest. A foreigner who reads the annals of Scotland, 
 and sees, in every page, the important position which this 
 place occupied in the literary, the political, and the ecclesi- 
 astical transactions of the country, would naturally imagine 
 the modern St. Andrews, though amerced perhaps of its 
 ancient greatness, to be a large, splendid, and influential 
 city. On approaching it, he sees across an almost treeless 
 plain a few spires standing on a point of rock on the edge 
 of the ocean ; and on entering he finds himself in a dead 
 village, without the slightest importance or attractions, 
 except what it derives from the tales that these spires recall. 
 
 There is no place in this country over which the Genius 
 of Antiquity lingers so impressively. The architectural 
 wrecks that have been spared are in themselves too far 
 gone. They are literally ruins, or rather the ruins of 
 ruins. Few of them have left even their outlines more 
 than discoverable. But this improves the mysteriousness 
 of the fragments, some of which, moreover, dignify parts 
 of otherwise paltry streets, in which they appear to have 
 been left for no other purpose except that of protesting 
 against modern encroachment. And they are all of a civil 
 character. Even what is called the castle was less of a 
 castle than of a palace. It was a strong place, but not a 
 place chiefly for military defence. They all breathe of 
 literary and ecclesiastical events, and of such political trans- 
 actions as were anciently involved in the Church. There 
 is no feeling here of mere feudal war. 
 
 And the associations of ancient venerableness which 
 belong so peculiarly to St. Andrews are less disturbed by 
 the repugnances of later ages than in any place that I can 
 think of, where the claims of antiquity are opposed to those 
 of living convenience. The colleges which, though young 
 in comparison with the cathedral, the tower, and the castle, 
 are coeval with the age of the Reformation, instead of in- 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT—SPRING 1844. 229 
 
 terfering with the sentiment of the place, bring down the 
 evidence of its learning into a nearer period, and prolong 
 the appropriate feeling. The taste of some of their modern 
 additions may be doubted, and the thing called the Madras 
 College is at present a great blot. There should have been 
 no commonplace, vulgar, bare -legged school here. Very 
 useful, in one sense, probably, as bruising the towers of 
 Oxford, and making its pillars and oriels into Mechanics' 
 Institutions, would be useful. But, unless ingratiated with 
 more circumspection than has operated here, all such in- 
 ventions of what is now called useful knowledge, a phrase 
 which generally means useless ignorance, are horrid to the 
 genius loci. But the old academic edifices are in excellent 
 keeping with the still older ruins. And these colleges, 
 when gone into, display many most interesting remains, 
 especially the general university library, a far better 
 collection of books than I had any idea they pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 The town itself, though I would rather have no town 
 at all, is less offensive than might be at first conceived 
 possible. I don't speak of that detestable Bell Street, 
 which, like everything else connected with the Founder of 
 the Madras College, has an inharmonious, contemptible, 
 new freestone look. Neither do I speak of a few villa 
 sort of things which have set themselves down on the 
 edges of the city, and have too often been allowed to steal 
 bits of ancient walls and gardens. But the proper town 
 — the true St. Andrews — is in good character. It is still 
 almost entirely surrounded by its ancient wall, and is said 
 never to have been larger than it is now, a statement which 
 the absence of all vestiges of ancient buildings beyond the 
 wall makes very probable. Its only three considerable 
 streets all radiate, at a very acute angle, from the cathedral 
 westward. There has never been any attempt at decora- 
 
230 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 tion on the houses, which are all singularly plain, though 
 often dignified by a bit of sculpture, a scarcely legible 
 inscription, a defaced coat-of-arms, or some other vestige 
 of the olden time. There are very few shops, and, thank 
 God, no trade or manufactures. I could not detect a single 
 steam-engine, and their navy consisted of three coal sloops 
 which lay within a small pier composed of large stones 
 laid rudely, though strongly, together upon a natural quay 
 of rock. The gentry of the place consists of professors, 
 retired Indians, saving lairds, old ladies and gentlemen with 
 humble purses, families resorting here for golf and educa- 
 tion, or for economy, or for sea-bathing. Nobody comes for 
 what is called business. Woe be on the ignorant wight 
 who did ! He would die of lethargy the first week. 
 
 For all this produces a silent, calm place. The streets 
 on Saturday evening and all this day were utterly quiet. 
 The steps of a passenger struck me, while sitting in this 
 Black Bull parlour, as if it had been a person moving in 
 a cloister, or crossing some still college quadrangle, amidst 
 the subdued noises of a hot forenoon. I remember when 
 I was in Dr. Fergusson's long ago, observing a young man 
 on the street, in August, with a grand blue coat, a pair of 
 splendid bright yellow leather breeches, and glorious boots. 
 I asked who he was, and was told, " Oh ! that 's the, hoarder^ 
 He was an English Lord Somebody, who had been at the 
 college in winter, and was sentenced by his friends to 
 remain here till the classes met again, being the only 
 visible student who remained. I felt for the boarder — 
 solitary wretch. 
 
 It is the asylum of repose — a city of refuge for those 
 who cannot live in the country, but wish for as little town 
 as possible. And all this is in unison with the ruins, the 
 still surviving edifices, the academical institutions, and the 
 past history of the place. On the whole, it is the best 
 
NORTH CIRCUir-SPRING 1844. 231 
 
 Pompeii in Scotland. If the professors and the youths be 
 not studious and learned, it must be their own fault. 
 They have everything to excite their ambition — books, 
 tranquillity, and old inspiration. And if anything more 
 were wanting, they have it in their extensive links, their 
 singular rocks, and their miles of the most admirable, hard, 
 dry sand. There cannot be better sea walks. The 
 prospects are not very good, except perhaps in a day such 
 as this — a day of absolute calmness and brightness — when 
 every distant object glitters, and the horizon of the ocean, 
 in its landless quarter, trembles in light, and the white 
 sea-birds stand on one leg on the warm rocks, and the 
 water lays itself out in long unbroken waves, as if it was 
 playing with the beautiful bays. The water, however, 
 though clear enough for the east coast, is no match for the 
 liquid crystal that laves all our western shores. 
 
 Nor are the philosophers here disturbed, like some other 
 naturally quiet spots, by being made a thoroughfare of. 
 The town leads to almost nothing. Few can say truly 
 that they went to any place by St. Andrews. St. Andrews 
 itself must be the object of the pilgrimage. 
 
 But though, to a stranger, tranquillity seems to be 
 deeply impressed on the whole place, the natives are not 
 solitary. On the contrary, among themselves they are 
 very social. Except those who choose to study, they are 
 all idle ; and having all a competency, often humble no 
 doubt, but sometimes considerable, they are exactly the 
 sort of people who can be gregarious without remorse, and 
 are allured into parties by the necessity of keeping awake. 
 And they have a local pleasure of their own, which is as 
 much the staple of the place as old colleges and churches 
 are. This is golfing, which is here not a mere pastime, 
 but a business and a passion, and has for ages been so, 
 owing probably to their admirable links. This pursuit 
 
232 CIR CUITJO URNE YS. 
 
 actually draws many a middle-aged gentleman whose 
 stomach requires exercise, and his purse cheap pleasure, to 
 reside here with his family; and it is the established 
 recreation of all the learning and all the dignity of the 
 town. There is a pretty large set who do nothing else, 
 who begin in the morning and stop only for dinner ; and 
 who, after practising the game, in the sea breeze, all day, 
 discuss it all night. Their talk is of holes. The inter- 
 mixture of these men, or rather the intermixture of this 
 occupation, with its interests, and hazards, and matches, 
 considerably whets the social appetite. And the result is, 
 that their meetings are very numerous, and that, on the 
 whole, they are rather a guttling population. However, it 
 is all done quietly, innocently, and respectably; inso- 
 much, that even the recreation of the place partakes of 
 what is, and ought to be, its peculiar character and 
 avocation. 
 
 If St. Andrews contributes little to knowledge, what 
 college contributes much"? What have been the direct 
 products of Oxford % The chief use of the academic 
 bowers is, to preserve the taste and the means of learning. 
 And, in this view, though other Scotch colleges may be 
 better fitted for professional education, there is none of 
 them so well suited for a lettered retreat. 
 
 Yesterday and to-day I have explored all the outsides 
 of things, and as much of the interiors as Sunday would 
 permit Mr. Jackson, the Professor of Divinity, to show me. 
 I walked eastward with him this afternoon to the Spindle 
 Rock, about two miles off; a beautiful sea-beach walk, ending 
 with that tall and singular cliff standing apart on the 
 shore — the best of many specimens of the same kind. 
 
 We went to his house at seven to tea, where we found 
 Connell, the Professor of Chemistry, and his wife, and Dr. 
 Haldane, the Principal of St. Mary's. At ten, the tea 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT—SPRING 1844. 233 
 
 became an excellent supper. Two of the fattest hens I 
 ever saw. They must have been fed by the monks for 
 their own use. We came home under a brilliant moon, 
 which ruins like.^ 
 
 Bridge of Earn, Monday Forenoon, 29th April 1844. — 
 Having seen St. Mary's College yesterday, we went this 
 morning, before breakfast, and saw St. Leonard's and St. 
 Salvator's, and the churches. Jackson and Connell and 
 their respective spouses attended us. 
 
 St. Mary's has been all repaired within these few years, 
 and is in a state of respectable comfort. The library — 
 which is that of both colleges — is far better than I had 
 supposed ; and, with their £650 (or thereabouts), in lieu 
 of their former Stationers' Hall privilege, it ought in time to 
 form a great collection. But they are sadly in want of 
 binding and repairing ; and if they don't attend to this 
 soon, the mischief will become irreparable. 
 
 The United College is more interesting in antiquarian 
 remains ; but, on this very account, it is in a melancholy 
 state of disrepair. They have rashly laid out about 
 £12,000, being all they had, in a wretched new building, 
 containing only four class-rooms. If they ever get more, 
 I anticipate a brief survivance of the remaining old portions 
 of the college. They will all be torn down, not repaired, 
 in order to make way for some poor substitute by the 
 Burn or the Reid of the day — the two masons who have 
 had most of the recent spoiling of this venerable place. 
 There are many things well-deserving of preservation ; but 
 what can be expected of poverty too great to keep even 
 the monuments of Bishop Geddes and of Archbishop Sharp 
 in order] 
 
 After a pleasant and useful exploration, we all went and 
 1 Journals^ ii. f)l-66. 
 
234 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 had an excellent breakfast at Dr. Haldane's. We then 
 visited the garden of an Indian Major, the Provost. It is 
 a nice garden, and he is an active and useful Provost. 
 But the childish and elaborate gimcracks that deform the 
 garden show that a man may be sensible in some things, 
 and a fool in others. 
 
 Sir David Brewster! He lives in St. Andrews and 
 presides over its principal college, yet no one speaks to 
 him ! With a beautiful taste for science, he has a stronger 
 taste for making enemies of friends. Amiable and agree- 
 able in society, try him with a piece of business, or with 
 opposition, and he is instantly, and obstinately, fractious 
 to the extent of something like insanity. With all arms 
 extended to receive a man of whom they were proud a few 
 years ago, there is scarcely a hand that he can now shake. 
 
 We reluctantly left this place at eleven, and have come by 
 Cupar and Newburgh here. There is nothing worth looking 
 at this way except a little broken, hillocky ground near 
 Newburgh, and the Tower of Abernethy. The last has 
 that interest which attaches to anything said to be 1000 
 years old, but is less worth going a mile to see than most 
 sights, chiefly because it is so absolutely simple and so easy 
 to be described. 
 
 Moncreiff has gone to Cavil, and I enter Perth alone to- 
 day at four ; and having reached this two hours too soon, 
 I am sitting in this nice English-like inn bringing up these 
 notes. The day is bright and warm. 
 
 We saw a swallow on Saturday near Arbroath, and 
 yesterday they were skimming the St. Andrews bays in 
 great numbers. 
 
 BoNALY, Sunday Night, 5th May 1844. — We were at 
 Perth from the evening of last Monday, the 29th of April, 
 till yesterday, the 4th of May, at three ; that is, we had 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT—SPRING 1844. 235 
 
 four days and a half of business. We got away yesterday 
 at three, and came to Edinburgh. 
 
 There were only about forty-four cases, none of which 
 were" at all interesting, except a female fire-raiser, and a 
 mad murderer. She, of the fire burned above £1000 of a 
 farmer's grain and outhouses, because he gave evidence 
 against her in the Small Debt Court ; and he, cleft the 
 heart of a constable who attempted to apprehend him. 
 His total insanity was made quite clear, both by evidence 
 and by his conduct at the bar. She, according to the 
 present fashion of all great criminals, claimed an im- 
 munity from responsibility, because her intellect was 
 rather iveak ; that is, because she was not a strong-minded 
 woman. She was sentenced to transportation for fourteen 
 years. Of the mob of thieves, above a dozen had been 
 already convicted in the Justiciary, and purified by long 
 incarceration. I fear that it may now be deemed certain 
 that thieves, especially if young, cannot be reformed by 
 being shut up in a box. 
 
 Mark Napier was our public accuser. Our most sensible 
 counsel for the accused was Mr. Arkley of Dunninald — a 
 judicious and worthy youth ; but too gentle, I fear, for 
 the rough work of the law. Our orator was a good soul, 
 who ekes out the humble competency with which he is con- 
 tent by keeping boarders, and rises at four in the morning 
 to read Plato in Greek, and is a good Whig, and though 
 otherwise judicious and very modest, is a nearly perfect 
 specimen of the extent to which the voice and the language 
 of rhetorical declamation, particularly in the pathetic line, 
 may be combined with absolute, and even ludicrous, 
 nonsense. We had an appeal on Saturday to the feelings 
 of a jury on behalf of a resetter of stolen goods, of which 
 I hope that Whigham, the Sheriff of the county, who 
 seized his pen and wrote as soon as the sentimental passage 
 
236 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 dawned, has a good report, for its serious, well -composed 
 and well-spoken absurdity was perfect. No small part of 
 the comedy consisted in the way in which this awkward 
 attempt to wheedle them out of their senses was taken by 
 the fifteen plain men to whom it was addressed. Thej^ 
 first lifted up large agrestic eyes and stared, then looked 
 sulky, and at last confounded the orator by hodges of loud 
 laughter. Yet all the words and thoughts were excellent, 
 the manner, though heavy and formal, was not bad, and 
 the voice was good. There was nothing wanting but 
 common-sense, as applicable to the subject in hand. But 
 he is a worthy man, and so good-natured and simple, that 
 when somebody, as we were all crossing the ferry together, 
 asked him, in joke, to recite the conclusion of his speech 
 to the ladies, he was very nearly doing it. If I had a small 
 but respectable office to bestow I would give it to this excel- 
 lent man, who will probably be neglected because he is too 
 modest. 
 
 My due feet never failed to walk the North Inch, in the 
 morning and at midnight. The South Inch deserves more 
 praise than it gets. The ten gardened houses on its west 
 side are beautiful. I never discovered till now that Perth 
 has one of the very sweetest chiming bells I have ever 
 heard, even in the villages of England. I am told it is 
 very old. I heard it, for the first time, at twelve at night, 
 when I was at the west end of the North Inch. It would 
 have been difficult to say whether it, or the Tay, or the 
 moon was the softest. 
 
 I grieve to say that the Perth heads are all full of rail- 
 ways, and new streets and depots. They are not aware how 
 very little would extinguish their city. 
 
 My nocturnal peregrinations have made me know that 
 the washerwomen here are distinguished from all their 
 Scotch sisters that I am aware of, by having a police of 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1S44. 237 
 
 their own, or at least for their own protection. I have 
 often been surprised at seeing their clothes left out on the 
 Inches all night. But I never went near the white plain 
 without perceiving a man at my side, and I find that the 
 nymphs of the tub have guardians of their own who watch 
 all night while they are otherwise occupied. 
 
 From the day we set off till the day we returned we 
 had not one hour of rain. Nothing but bright, mild, 
 vernal days and nights — weather which says, " Go to sleep 
 in peace, and don't disturb yourself about to-morrow." 
 The only exception was on our approach to Edinburgh. 
 We left Perth amidst sunshine and warmth ; but as soon 
 as we approached the Forth, we found everything clouded 
 by the icy breath of that blighter of springs — haar. 
 
 I read little except the recent numbers of the Edin- 
 hurgh and of the Quarterly Eeiieivs. The great article of 
 the day is Macaulay's " Life of Barrere," in the Edinburgh. 
 It is a powerful, indeed an exterminating, exposition. 
 But I see no use of such force for such an object. It is 
 like setting a mastiff to worry a mouse. To my feeling, 
 too, Macaulay is always ponderous. In the two one- 
 things-needful — thought and knowledge — he never fails 
 to be admirable. But his mere style I cannot approve of. 
 I know no great English writer whose style is so danger- 
 ous to youth. It is more so than even Gibbon's, because 
 his other qualities are more attractive than Gibbon's. His 
 elaborate brilliancy, constant antithesis, and studied 
 quaintness of manner, are all wearisome. But these faults, 
 though still gross, and even still paraded as his peculiar 
 excellences, are diminishing ; and if the progress shall end 
 in simplicity, he will then be a good writer. Simplicity 
 ought to be his aim. All that is bad of him may be traced 
 to the want of it. 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT. 
 
 Autumn 1844. 
 
 CuMFSTON, Saturday, Hth September 1844, iVoow. — Mrs. 
 Cockburn and my two daughters, Elizabeth and Johanna, 
 left Edinburgh with me on the morning of last Tuesday, 
 the 10th, and got to Dumfries to dinner. A good day, 
 which that dull road requires, and almost defies. Even 
 Moffat, however, looked comfortable. 
 
 Moncreiff joined me at Dumfries next morning from 
 Jedburgh, where he had five cases to dispose of. We had 
 one prisoner, and he for only stealing a greatcoat at 
 Dumfries ; and transporting him for ten years finished the 
 business of this innocent district. Had he not been sen- 
 tenced to be transported before, he would have been sent 
 to the Sheriff now, and left Dumfries without a Circuit 
 indictment. Moncreiff has gone home, and I am on my 
 way to Ayr. 
 
 My love of Dumfries — at least of its beauty — increases. 
 A most respectable country town, it wants nothing 
 but an old cathedral. However, its church and church- 
 yard, its nice, half-Anglified, reddish houses, with their 
 bright windows, its clean streets, paved with small stones, 
 its most beautiful river and green, and the memory of 
 Burns, give it all a pleasing and respectable air. I am 
 not sure that there is a more perfectly beautiful village 
 scene anywhere — even on the North Inch — than on look- 
 ing up the water from the lower end of the green. The spec- 
 
so UTH CIR CUir—A UTUMN 1 844. 239 
 
 tator must be so far down the green as to lose all the paltry 
 part of Maxwelltown, and to see only Dumfries, lined by 
 the Nith, softened by a few trees, and the prospect bounded 
 by the bridge. Notwithstanding a few black coal sloops, 
 and the pretty constant din of a cursed manufacturing mill 
 at the lower end of the green, it is a singularly serene and 
 pleasing prospect. 
 
 There are just, if I recollect right, three country towns 
 of the kind in Scotland — Dumfries, Inverness, and Perth. 
 I mean country towns lying on the very edges of consider- 
 able and accessible rivers, and with large spaces of open 
 recreation ground in connection with the town and the 
 stream. The Tweed at Melrose is usurped as private pro- 
 perty, the Jed at Jedburgh is only to be enjoyed from the 
 highway, the Green of Glasgow, and the Clyde, too, are but 
 the breathing courts of a hot and smoky workshop. (But 
 query — as to Peebles and Kelso X) At these three places 
 the mind is literally led " through pastures green, the 
 quiet waters by." 
 
 I was delighted to see some comfortable iron seats jjlaced 
 on different parts of the green, near the infirmary, marked 
 '■'for the sick poor." 
 
 Qwx 'public dinner, as it is called (Commercial Hotel), 
 was the worst I ever beheld, even at a Circuit, I record it 
 as a dinner of unexampled abomination. 
 
 After getting quit of our solitary thief we went and 
 called at Terregles, where we saAv a recently-made flower- 
 garden. It is extremely beautiful. Good flowers, shrubs, 
 and trees, adorning, but, as usual, more adorned by pure, 
 regular walks, bright, smooth turf, and well-kept stairs, urns, 
 and terraces. But there are three errors. First, no water. 
 They are going to bring it for the house soon, from a hill 
 a mile off", and then they promise fountains. But at present 
 they are dry. Second, they have put lines of gravel walks 
 
240 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 alongside of most of the flower-plots, cut out of the grass, 
 instead of leaving the plots to be bounded by the grass 
 itself. Thirdly, and chiefly, they have employed a pro- 
 fessional rock-maker, from London I believe, to manufac- 
 ture masses of fantastic rock-work. This in Scotland ! a 
 country full of the best productions of the great rock 
 maker, Nature ! Fech ! 
 
 After coming back I renewed my acquaintance with 
 lincluden and with the kirkyard of Dumfries, and went, 
 for the first time, into Burns's house — the house in which 
 he lived and died, and out of which he was taken to his 
 long home. The two poor apartments are just as he left 
 them ; but the only things within them that were there in 
 his day are two bells in the kitchen. It is a shame to Scot- 
 land that that house is not bought and preserved. It is 
 now occupied by a seemingly very poor journeyman painter. 
 
 That night Elizabeth, having found a friend in Miss 
 Thomson, went with her to Allanton, to stay till Monday. 
 And next morning (the 1 2th) Johanna left Dumfries with 
 her cousin, George Maitland, and came here. That day 
 (the 12th) was spent by Mrs. Cockburn, Mr. Macbean, 
 whom we had met in Dumfries, and me, at Allanton. 
 
 It is a nice little place, seven miles up the Nith, occupied 
 by Mr. Morin, who married a daughter of my very oldest, 
 and still living friend, Dr. Anthony Tod Thomson, of 
 London. The Doctor promised to meet me there, but 
 failed. His wife — formerly Miss Byerley — was there : the 
 author of many books, yet a natural, unobtrusive, and 
 agreeable woman. She is meditating lives, or biographical 
 notices, of the leaders in our two Jacobite rebellions. I 
 told her that in so far as the Scotch ones were concerned, 
 she must either be false or represent them as a set of as 
 paltry, foolish, and selfish fellows as ever dishonoured a 
 cause, which nothins; but disinterested heroism could have 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1844. 2il 
 
 dignified. A hero of Lovat, Lochiel, or even Balmerino 
 and Kenmure ! What a fancy ! 
 
 We went to the top of a hill near Allanton, from which 
 we had a splendid prospect of the whole valley of the Nith, 
 from Drumlanrig to the sea. There are few finer inland 
 scenes. 
 
 We returned to Dumfries at night; and came here 
 yesterday to dinner, calling at Gelston Castle on our way 
 —one of the ugliest of places. 
 
 I go towards Ayr to-morrow. 
 
 Blairquhan, Mo?i^/«2/ ilfwHzw^, l^th Septeriiber 1844. — 
 Leaving the rest of my party at Cumpston, George Mait- 
 land and I came on here to-day, by Newton-Stewart and 
 the Rowan Tree — the longest way, but said to be the best 
 worth seeing, and new to me. 
 
 We set out amidst heavy rain, which had been going 
 on for two days, and had deluged everything. But it 
 brightened up for about two and a half hours after leaving 
 Gatehouse : and we had this gleam from Gatehouse to 
 Newton-Stewart, and through the wood, beyond that of 
 Penninghame. These twenty-three or twenty-four miles 
 are beautiful. Till we turn inland at Newton-Stewart the 
 road runs close by the seashore, and passes through 
 several wooded private properties. Of these, the one I 
 would accept of with the least hesitation is Cardoness ; but 
 there are others that I would not rashly reject. Gatehouse 
 is clean and comfortable, but too visibly the village at 
 the Great Man's Gate. Creetown and Newton-Stewart 
 are beautifully situated, and seen at a little distance amidst 
 their sheltering trees, look like capitals in Arcadia ; but 
 oh, oh! when they are entered!! Not even the peat- 
 flavoured air — whispering the approach of a Highland 
 village so agreeably — can save them. Styes for human 
 
 Q 
 
242 CIR CUITJO URNE YS. 
 
 swine. The opposite coast of Wigtown Bay is too flat ; 
 but still, an expanse of bright water is always pleasing, 
 and so long as this water is in view the stage is excellent, 
 though certainly not entitled to the extravagant admiration 
 of being perhaps the most beautiful in the south of Scot- 
 land, by which it is sometimes misrepresented. And Loch 
 Cree, which I have so often heard complimented, is, as a 
 loch, nonsense. It is no loch. A loch one hundred yards 
 across ! It is a widening of the Eiver Cree ; the river 
 being only so much the worse of the widening. But in 
 so far as either loch or river are within the Penninghame 
 woods, the combination is very good. 
 
 Immediately on leaving the coast and turning north- 
 ward, the scene is entirely changed. From Penninghame 
 to Blairwhan, a distance of about twenty-eight or thirty 
 miles, it is all one world of unbroken desolation. And 
 the traveller has no pretence of not having leisure to 
 observe it, because he has to ascend the whole course ot 
 the brawling Minnick, which gives him about twenty 
 miles of a continued rise. Had it been bright, I have no 
 doubt that a region of such utter solitude and wildness 
 would have been extremely pleasing. But fog sat upon 
 every knoll ; and while rain prevented walking, the horses 
 had to drag the carriage slowly up, hour after hour, till 
 its swinging creak became provoking. Nothing but 
 philosophy and Burke's Correspondence, interspersed by 
 occasional slumber, made the tediousness endurable. At 
 last we reached the Eowan Tree — a solitary hovel — where, 
 whatever there was in some former state, no tree now is. 
 There there were no horses ; so we had to rest the ones we 
 had, and to take them on twelve miles more ; the first three 
 of these miles being the steepest of the whole, and showing 
 themselves in a long dull sweep over a heavy lumpish 
 hill In order to be ready to fall at once on the Blairwhan 
 
so UTH CIR C UIT—A UTUMN 1 844. 243 
 
 banquet, we dressed here j but despairing of it, allayed the 
 inward monster by oatcake and kebbock. The natives 
 were kind and merry ; a single Adam and a single Eve, 
 who, in that paradise, had produced children enough soon 
 to people the whole garden. These three miles exhausted 
 fifty minutes ; but we were now at the summit, and after 
 a very rapid descent we got here at seven. The banquet 
 had begun ; but we soon made up to them. 
 
 Shewalton, Monday Night, IQth September 1844. — And 
 a pleasant, quiet banquet it was. 
 
 I rose early (I mean at seven) this morning, and sur- 
 veyed the beauties of Blairwhan. It deserves its usual 
 praises. A most gentlemanlike place, rich in all sort of 
 attractions — of wood, lawn, river, gardens, hill, agriculture, 
 and pasture. The house (by Burn) is too ostentatious and 
 too large for the place, and, architecturally, is nothing. 
 But still it proclaims itself the mansion-house of a gentle- 
 man, and a thing that does not intend itself to be taken 
 for a common affair. The long approach, mostly by the 
 side of the Girvan, is well conceived and well executed. 
 There is, as usual, a cruel aversion to the axe. Part of it 
 arises here from the anxiety for underwood for shooting. 
 A fair object, but too often made a pretext for neglecting 
 the trees. But whatever pheasants may like, the Dryads 
 love a lover of the hatchet. 
 
 Sir David Blair and I began our acquaintance in the 
 same class of the High School. He is an excellent man ; 
 and I was glad, at this my first visit to his seat, to see 
 him so comfortably and respectably placed. 
 
 We drove in the forenoon to Ayr, from whence George 
 Maitland, Mark Napier the Advocate-Depute, and I, 
 walked to Craigie House on a visit, after which Napier 
 and I came on here to the Lord President Boyle's. We 
 
244 CIR C UIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 were in time for a two-hours' walk before dinner, and 
 have passed an agreeable, though not a very merry, 
 evening ; for it is a heavy house. The only persons who 
 have been here, besides the family, Napier and I, have 
 been Alison, the historian, and his spouse. 
 
 Shewalton is a mere farm ; but is a very good one. 
 Quite flat, with good land, and much capable of being 
 made so, all in excellent order, chiefly in clean, well laid 
 down pasture, not unlike an English farm, except that 
 there are no decent trees, and which is worse, none that 
 time will ever make decent. The President is an honest, 
 kind gentleman ; and it was very agreeable to find a Chief- 
 Justice enjoying his vacation in check trousers, thick 
 shoes, and a grey jacket; with a weed-hook in his hand, 
 health in his stomach, and jolly good humour in his face. 
 The river Irvine gives little, if any, mere beauty to his 
 place. But he partakes in common with all the coast of 
 Ayrshire, of glorious Arran. 
 
 I again paced the rhododendron at Craigie, to see which 
 Eutherfurd and I performed a pilgrimage from Edinburgh 
 last year, when it was in flower ; and I again ascertained 
 that it was positively about eighty feet in circumference. 
 
 We go to Ayr to-morrow. 
 
 CuMPSTON, Wednesday Night and Thursday Morning^ 1 8/^ 
 and 19^^ September 1844. — Napier and I, and Archibald 
 Boyle, went to Ayr accordingly before breakfast; this 
 being the first time I was ever in that burgh judicially. 
 
 A very shabby procession for such a place landed us 
 at an inn worthy of the procession. The judges should 
 always have their own lodgings. 
 
 There were only five cases. Of these, one was disposed 
 of by a plea of guilty, another by the absence of a wit- 
 ness, and a third by the prisoner's challenges (purposely) 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1844. 245 
 
 exhausting the special jurymen. So there were only two 
 trials, which, however, occupied about ten hours ; and in 
 one of these the jury convicted the accused of what 
 another part of their verdict, as recorded, acquitted her; 
 and this ended in a certification to the Court, so that a 
 three months' imprisonment for a gentle homicide was the 
 only penal result of this part of the Circuit. There were 
 no appeals. The distinction of jurymen into special and 
 general, as we use if, by having a proportion of both in 
 every jury is absurd. It was introduced about twenty 
 years ago when the horrid power of "pickiiig " every jury 
 was taken from the presiding judge and given to the ballot- 
 box, the notion being that this invention secured juries 
 from having no " respectable men " in them. The common 
 are just as respectable as the special, and I expect to see 
 the blot of this aristocracy removed from the box, though 
 the qualification of the whole had better, perhaps, be 
 raised. 
 
 I used to be a great deal at Ayr formerly, especially 
 when I lived with my long-deceased friend Eobert 
 Kennedy of Underwood, very soon after I came to the 
 bar. It was then filled with the families of gentlemen, 
 from the country, from India, and from public service, and 
 was a gay, card-playing, dancing, eating and drinking, 
 scandal-loving place. There seemed to be a dinner or a 
 tea and card party every day at several houses of Kennedys, 
 and Boswells, and Crawfords, and Dalrymples, and lots of 
 old colonels, and worthy old ladies. And to get up a bail, 
 nothing was wanted but for somebody to set it agoing and 
 they would be footing it away in a few hours. 
 
 The taste for scandal and for guzzling probably remains, 
 but all the rest is gone. There are more people in the 
 town now than then, and they live in better houses. There 
 was no Wellington Square, and scarcely a single suburban 
 
246 CIR C UI T JO URNE YS. 
 
 villa in my day. But the sort of gentry who formed its 
 soul exists no longer. The yellow gentlemen who return 
 now from India take their idleness and their livers to 
 Cheltenham or Bath. The landowners don't reside even 
 in the shire, or at least very few of them, but leave their 
 seats cold under a very general system of absenteeism. The 
 Municipal Eeform Act has deprived the burgh even of the 
 wretched political importance of its regularly bribed Town 
 Council. The individuals whose station, age, habits, or char- 
 acters gave respectability to the comfortable county town, 
 are gone, and their very families — the scenes of such mirth, 
 beauty, kindness, and enjoyment — have entirely disappeared. 
 The fashion of the Ayr world hath passed away. The great 
 family of Cassillis had formerly a large mansion, which was 
 standing ten years ago, for their winter residence in 
 ! The meaning of this was that the clustering 
 
 together of the adjacent families made even Maybole 
 agreeable, or that the inconvenience of living in that village 
 was less than that of going ten miles further and reaching 
 Ayr. These were the days of no roads and of detached 
 communities. All things are now melted into one sea, 
 with a strong Corryvreckan in it sweeping everything 
 towards the metropolis. And this has been the process 
 in all provincial capitals. Improved harbours, railroad 
 stations, better trade, and larger masses of migratory 
 people have succeeded, and those who prefer this to the 
 recollections of the olden time will be pleased. As to me, 
 my reason is with the modern world, my dreams with the 
 old one. And I feel that as to the ancient days there is 
 much of their enchantment that arises from distance. 
 
 I went to the point of the pier, along the links, round 
 the edges of the town, and through most of the streets, 
 yesterday, before breakfast. Except Wellington Square, 
 the Court-House, and a few half-country houses, it is all 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1844. 247 
 
 very unchanged. The old kirk steeple has been rebuilt 
 and modernised, and of course amerced of its chief beauty 
 and interest ; and the unpardonable and irreparable Van- 
 dalism has been committed of removing the Wallace 
 Tower, to which Ayr owed its chief dignity. The shore 
 westward of the pier, though far inferior in firm, dry, 
 purity of sand to that of St. Andrews, is excellent for the 
 recreation of man and horse, and the whole bay is washed 
 by a very respectable sea. There are some ugly symptoms 
 of visions of building on the " Laigh Green," a tempting, 
 but fatal proceeding for the seashore expatiation of the 
 people. The greatest improvement on the mere town 
 would be to shake the vermin of the Newton off its phylac- 
 teries, and to put a terrace of neat, bowery houses above 
 the old bridge, on the right bank of the river. The great 
 deduction from the comfort and respectability of Ayr 
 proper is this horrid Newton, and the squalid lines of 
 wretched overcrowded hovels, stared out of by unfed 
 and half-naked swarms of coal-black and seemingly defying 
 inhabitants, that form its eastern approaches. They have 
 a very Hibernian air. 
 
 I found that Ayr still boasted of its peculiar female 
 beauty. I scarcely ever knew a provincial town that did 
 not. Ayr is not behind ; but though on the lookout, I 
 can't say that my eyes were particularly dazzled. There 
 was one fair figure, however, that haunted my memory; 
 that of her who, in the former days, was Marion Shaw, 
 and is now the widow of the late Sir Charles Bell. 
 Beauty, such as hers, was enough for one city. That 
 portion of it which belonged to the mind is as bright and 
 as graceful as ever, and there are few forms with which 
 time has dealt so gently. But the place knows her no 
 more. 
 
 George Maitland and I left Ayr yesterday [18th] after 
 
248 CIRCUIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 breakfast, and got here easily to dinner. Having got 
 enough of the Rowan Tree on Sunday, we came by Dal- 
 mellington, Carsphairn and New Galloway. 
 
 I cannot compare the two routes, any more than a man 
 can take the same view of things before dinner and after 
 We endured the one through heavy fog, anxious not to be 
 too late in reaching a house called a castle, and impatient 
 with a road of unexpected and unchanging steepness ; the 
 other we enjoyed under a friendly sun, with plenty time, 
 and a good road, sloping down as much as up. In these 
 circumstances I greatly prefer the Carsphairn way. 
 
 Some of it of course is better than the rest, but the 
 whole track is really excellent. It is all rich in extensive 
 inland views, bounded and varied, not by wide plains 
 which because they are high above the sea are said to be 
 hills, but by real, plainly marked, sticking-up mountains. 
 There are a great many beautiful places, and the whole 
 country is alive with streams, I am not sure that I have 
 seen any better specimen of our Southern Highlands. I 
 wish I had Barbeth. When the time shall come (as come 
 it will) when English cottages or English neatness shall 
 be introduced into Scotland, what a village Dalmellington 
 may be. A few old trees, irregular ground, tumbling 
 burns, a spire, and a mill, — what more is wanted *? Loch 
 Doon, like Loch Cree, is scarcely a loch. It is an 
 aneurism on the river. The lately detected lead-mines near 
 Carsphairn, instead of marring, to my taste improve the 
 scene, and even increase its wildness. It looks like a 
 colony of solitary strangers who were trying to discover 
 subterranean treasures in a remote land. The finest part 
 of the way is about New Galloway, particularly before 
 reaching that place. 
 
 N.B. — I beg Newton-Stewart's pardon. It was not it 
 that I meant, but another very small village, the name 
 
so UTH CIR C UIT—A UTUMN 1 844. 249 
 
 of which I forget. However, the purity even of Newton- 
 Stewart is certainly not exemplary. 
 
 CuMPSTON, Monday Fur moon, 2od September 1844. — Still 
 here, and shall be so for a few days longer. It is an 
 excellent and respectable place, with a competent portion 
 of old wood. There are not many seats in this country 
 with so much well-managed young wood, and not one that 
 I know of with better turf. The pasture might be con- 
 tended for in England. But, in general, the turf of 
 Galloway has not the poor yellow verdure of the turf of 
 ordinary Scotland, but is the good, firm, clean, green turf 
 of the south. There is a delightful variety of surface here, 
 and some very good prospects. The defects of the place 
 are the want of level ground — though properly conducted 
 walks might abate this — the absence of water, and the 
 presence of the paltry puddle of ebbing and flowing mud, 
 which the natives flatter themselves is the sea. 
 
 I have revisited Dundrennan Abbey, and claim the 
 principal merit of its being in the state it now is. The 
 objurgation which I have recorded in 1839 was freely 
 administered verbally. This roused Thomas Maitland, 
 now of Dundrennan, and he roused Lord Selkirk and 
 others ; and the result is that the Commissioners of Woods 
 and Forests have cleaned out the rubbish, and drained the 
 ground, and made some judicious repairs, and cleared away 
 the abominable offices of the manse, and enclosed the 
 whole. It is still- far from what a reverenced ruin ought 
 to be, because its preservation requires much more j^inning 
 and cementing, and purity ; but compared to what it was, 
 it is humanity to barbarism. It is another of several 
 examples, that none of the hallowed architectural remains 
 of Scotland, except those belonging to the Crown, will 
 ever be kept in decent order. Something may always be 
 
250 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 expected to be done by the Woods and Forests, as Elgin, 
 Arbroath, and Dundrennan attest. It is plain that every 
 private ruin is destined to disappear. Mr. Maxwell of 
 Terregles, the owner of Lincluden, a most liberal gentleman, 
 and whose taste for old relics is excited by his Catholic 
 faith, complained to me that he could not get that building 
 preserved from the mischief of tourists and Dumfries pic- 
 nickers. And what had this man of fortune, residing only 
 two miles off, done to preserve it? Put a wall round it, 
 or planted a keeper there, or prosecuted any profane hand, 
 or commanded reverence for that beautiful and beautifully 
 situated fragment by the order in which it has been kept % 
 No, none of these. But he leaves it unenclosed, and may 
 see the tenants' cattle in it any time he may choose, and 
 lets spoliation proceed unchecked, and leaves every new ton 
 of rubbish to lie, for the nettles, where it may fall. What 
 can he expect from a broken placard, intimating that Mr. 
 Maxwell of Terregles " requests " blackguards to do as little 
 mischief as they like ? Does he do no more for his phea- 
 sants 1 
 
 I have also been at Cally again, and I retract much of 
 what I have formerly said of that house. It is not too 
 small; and, indeed, being in just proportions, size is not 
 very material. The joining of the stones is almost entirely 
 concealed by the angular groove in which they are set. 
 And, on the whole, it is a beautiful portico; and Pap- 
 worth's taste may be observed in all the internal details. 
 
 CUMPSTON, Morning, Wednesday, 25th Septemher 1844. — 
 After another of many visits to Kirkcudbright and other 
 places, George Maitland and I closed the day by a pil- 
 grimage on foot to the monument raised a few years ago 
 to the covenanting martyrs in the Glenken Hills. We 
 found it about seven miles from this — a small, and rather 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1844. 251 
 
 ill-built, granite obelisk, placed beside the spot where 
 James Clement and four others were murdered in 1685, 
 and Clement buried, in a hollow, well suited by its seclu- 
 sion for the concealment of the persecuted, yet equally 
 suited, on rising a few steps, to inspire them by a splendid 
 prospect of still, solitary plains and mountains. The funds 
 for the erection of this testimony were produced by a 
 sermon preached on the spot upon the 11th of September 
 1831, to which, notwithstanding the month and the eleva- 
 tion, about 10,000 people listened. So unchanged are the 
 religious feelings of the Scotch; so unextinguishable is 
 indignation of persecution and admiration of courage. 
 Yet this is the people whom an ignorant Government lately 
 thought would submit quietly to a greatly increased inter- 
 ference of patrons and Civil Courts with their spiritual 
 concerns. The Free Church is the pillar to this folly. 
 
 CUMPSTON, Thursday Morning, 26th September 1844. — 
 Yesterday was given to an expedition to the lighthouse on 
 the island of Little Ross, about six or seven miles below 
 Kirkcudbright, Some rode and some drove, and George 
 Maitland walked till we all came to the alehouse on the 
 peninsula of Great Ross, where we took boat, and after 
 about a mile's sailing, were landed on the island. It is 
 one of the lesser lights. All its machinery was explained 
 to us by a sensible keeper. I never understood the thing 
 before. The prospect from the top, and, indeed, from 
 every part of the island, is beautiful. But I was more 
 interested in the substantial security and comfort of the 
 whole buildings, both for scientific and for domestic pur- 
 poses. No Dutchman's summer-house could be tidier. 
 Everything, from the brass and the lenses of the light to 
 the kitchen, and even to the coal-house, of each of the two 
 keepers, was as bright as a jeweller's shop. 
 
252 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 Eleven people lunched at the alehouse on our return 
 upon the oatcakes, cheese, butter, and ale of the house. 
 In a frenzy of generosity I resolved to pay the bill, and 
 was rewarded by finding it amounted to only one. sixpence. 
 There 's a hotel for you ! I shall tell this to AVilliam 
 Clerk, and he '11 take up house there. 
 
 George Maitland and I walked home — a tough tramp. 
 But it lay all the way along the shore, and mostly through 
 Woods. Admirable woods most scandalously mis- 
 managed. He is one of the poor creatures who have 
 become the slaves of their own vermin. His pleasure 
 is in death. He must be perpetually killing some- 
 thing. And when his existence reaches any unhappy 
 season in which there is nothing killable at home, he goes 
 to Sweden or Norway and torments the unprotected fishes 
 of these countries. There is one other rising youth in 
 Scotland at present who soars far beyond what is called 
 game, and, for mere pleasure, kills sheep and poultry, and 
 particularly swine, the shedding of whose blood is his 
 
 especial delight. These are Young Scotland. , 
 
 grovelling in his own tastes, sacrifices everything to the 
 creation of game. His estate is a great preserve, it 
 is absolutely crawling with rabbits. For them, and 
 for hares and pheasants, everything else is neglected. 
 The worse state his woods get into, he thinks it the 
 better, so as they be only suff*ering from growing into 
 tangled masses of branches and of underwood. Tall 
 jungles are his object. I could overlook the mean- 
 ness of his taste, for it is his own loss ; and I could almost 
 endure the cruel war which he and his mounted patrols 
 of gamekeepers carry on against the people, because he 
 gets properly cursed for it ; but it is impossible to forgive 
 the selfishness which bequeaths the beautiful scenery 
 which has the misfortune to call him master in a state of 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1844. 253 
 
 decay to the next generation. We passed to-day through 
 miles of the finest sweet chestnuts — all under sacrifice, 
 in order that, during his hour, he may boast of his 
 battues. 
 
 CuMPSTON, Friday, '21th September 1844, 4 p.m. — 
 Yesterday was (almost) wasted on a voyage from Kirk- 
 cudbright to a place about six miles below, on the east 
 side of the bay, called Dirk Hatteraick's Cave. The party 
 consisted of George and James Maitland, a Captain Dun, 
 with whom, when he was in the Kirkcudbright Militia, I, 
 a gallant captain of volunteers, was quartered in Leith, in 
 the year of our Lord 1807, the present provost, Mr. 
 Gordon, the old provost, Mr. Macbean, myself, and four 
 of a crew. Like all other aquatic expeditions of pleasure, 
 the only pleasure was in getting out of the boat. A 
 squally, dull day, a leaky boat, bad oars, and no captain, 
 completed our comfort. The only thing that diverted me 
 was the constant advices and entreaties of each provost to 
 the other how to steer. The old one was clearly the best 
 seaman, and indeed was admitted to be the best on the 
 river. But then he was out, and a Whig. So, out of 
 respect to the Tory, who was in, the ruling authority on 
 shore took, and though plainly unfit, was allowed to keep 
 the helm on the water : and if the point had been out or 
 in at the Council board, the altercations could not have 
 been more keen or frequent. " Keep her head up ! " 
 " Keep her head down ! " " Keep off yon bank, can't ye ! " 
 " What the deevil are ye doing now 1 " " Oh, man, gie me 
 less of your advice ! " " Hullo ! we '11 be all swampt in a 
 minute." "I wish you would try the rudder yourself." 
 "Na, faith; keep it, since you've got it; only keep her 
 head up," etc. 
 
 And, after all, the said cave is perfect nonsense. A 
 
254 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 narrow, wet, dirty slit in a rock, produced by the washing 
 away of the loose matter between two vertically laminated 
 rocks, and answering Scott's scenery in no one respect, 
 either outside or in. The coast is rocky and bold. 
 
 To-day I went to Tongueland Hill to have another view 
 of Kirkcudbright. I doubt if there be a more picturesque 
 country town in Scotland. Small, clean, silent, and 
 respectable ; it seems (subject, however, to one enormous 
 deduction) the type of a place to which decent characters 
 and moderate purses would retire for quiet comfort. The 
 deduction arises from the dismal swamps of deep, sleechy 
 mud, by which it is nearly surrounded at low tide. It is 
 a dreadful composition. And what fields, and streaks, and 
 gullies of it ! The tide rises at an average about twenty 
 or twenty-five feet, and often a great deal more — some- 
 times thirty-five. This great flow fills up all the bays, 
 making a brim-full sea for three miles above the town, 
 and for six or eight below it. It is then a world of waters. 
 But when the sea, ashamed of its advancement, shrinks 
 back, what a change ! It becomes a world of sleech. It 
 is worse than even at Chepstow, where the abomination, 
 though deeper, does not cover so extensive a surface. I 
 believe that painters don't dislike this substance, which 
 they don't require to touch. It is not unpicturesque. Of 
 a leaden grey colour, very shiny, in the sun even silvery 
 in appearance ; utterly solitary, except to flocks of long- 
 billed and long red-legged sea birds, and to occasionally a 
 heavy fisherman working at a stranded boat in huge boots ; 
 and its dull plains interspersed with odd streaks and pools 
 of shallow water, it has hues and objects enough to aff'ord 
 subjects for many pictures. But, Lord, how horrible it is 
 for real life ! Think of being surrounded by a dirty sub- 
 stance, impossible to be touched, and most dangerous to be 
 gone upon. A town surrounded by a lake of bird-lime ! 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1S44. 255 
 
 It is only at full tide, or nearly so, that Kirkcudbright 
 is to be viewed therefore, or at .such a distance that the 
 difference between water and watery mud is lost. And 
 then, how beautifully does it stand ! With its brown ruin 
 of a castle, its church spire, the spire of its old town-house, 
 and the square tower of its new one, all seen above its 
 edging of trees, and the whole village surrounded by 
 wooded hills and apparently glittering sea. There is no 
 point from which it can be viewed, whether high or low, 
 and I have seen it from all possible points, at which it does 
 not present the same appearance of picturesque peaceful- 
 ness, of intermingled wood and water. From several 
 aspects it is the Venice of Scotland. 
 
 So I must go and pack up. For we plan being in 
 Bonaly to-morrow, but only by being off soon after five in 
 the morning. 
 
 But I have forgot the two humble and very rustic 
 churchyards of Christkirk and Senwick, both on the western 
 or right bank of the river; Christkirk nearly opposite 
 Kirkcudbright, Senwick about five miles lower down. If 
 the Scotch could keep a churchyard decent, the positions 
 and solitude of these two would make them beautiful. 
 Few of their epitaphs are old, and not one good. Mere 
 names and dates. 
 
 By the way, I may mention in reference to the epitaph 
 which I found in 1843 at Inveraray, beginning, "Fare- 
 well, vain world," that I found the same thought, and in 
 somewhat the same words, in Dundrennan, and also a few 
 weeks ago in the two Herefordshire churchyards of Ross 
 and Goodrich. 
 
 Bonaly, Monday, 30th Septemher 1844. — And we made 
 out our journey well. AVe left Cumpston on Saturday, the 
 day before yesterday, at half-past five in the morning; 
 
256 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 reached Ayr, by Dalmellington, before one ; left Ayr by 
 the railway at two; got to the hotel at Glasgow by 
 half-past four ; left it by six ; and were here by half-past 
 nine. 
 
 I have nothing to observe. It was a dull, wet day. 
 But I should have observed before that the owner, 
 who is now Lord Kenmure, has been pleased to n^liite- 
 wash his castle. That old, grey, tall feudal keep is 
 now as white as milk. The only thing let alone is the 
 piece of ruin abutting to one side of the tower, which is 
 left in original darkness ; and the contrast makes both the 
 white and the black more ridiculous. 
 
 Captain Dun told me that as he was walking last year 
 with this worthy peer, his lordship happened, by an awk- 
 ward step, to come against a large and well-placed tree — 
 of which he has certainly not too many. He was not in 
 the least hurt; but the touch brought the temper out, 
 and he instantly called to some workmen, " Down with it ! 
 Down with it instantly ! ! " and stood for some hours till 
 their hatchets laid it low. It was a tree that had certainly 
 seen his ancestor " on and awa' " in 1715. 
 
 My book was Burke's recently published Letters. I 
 took it because Jeffrey, who is in England, wrote to me on 
 the 4th instant that he had been reading it, and that it is 
 "to me full of the deepest interest and delight. The 
 greatest and most accomplished intellect which England 
 has produced for centuries; and of a noble and lovable 
 nature." The " centuries " cannot go beyond two, because 
 three would include Bacon and Shakespeare; and even 
 one includes Newton : with any one of whom Jeffrey could 
 not mean to compare Burke. But no doubt the person 
 he was fascinated by when he wrote these words was great 
 and accomplished, noble and lovable. Nevertheless, for 
 the ^public, his correspondence must be a dull book. For 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1844. 257 
 
 a person writing a history of England during the last half 
 of the last century these letters may probably be invaluable, 
 because they are chiefly occupied by parliamentary details, 
 and by statements about the political manoeuvres of the 
 great political families. But what is all this to a general 
 reader? Nothing can be more wearisome than vague 
 allusions, or than even precise statements, touching bygone 
 Court intrigues, counterjobbings of Whig lords against 
 Tory lords, and parliamentary movements, which, however 
 absorbing in their day, left no permanent traces on the sur- 
 faces of the waters they ruffled. Macaulay is meditating an 
 article in the Edinburgh Review on this correspondence, and 
 there can be no doubt that he, the future historian of 
 Burke's time, will make it the finest thing in the world. 
 But, to others, he may be assured that he will never make 
 it have an atom of the interest that will attach to the 
 review. 
 
 And surely Burke's whole thoughts and days were not 
 given up to party politics. Did he never write of litera- 
 ture % or to ordinary friends ? One could scarcely guess 
 from reading these letters that he had any literature, or 
 was intimate with Goldsmith or Johnson, or that a thing 
 called " the people " existed in this country. It is all Lord 
 Rockingham against Lord Somebody else, or the king 
 against them all. Did he never philander or go to the 
 Literary Club % Certainly he did. Then as certainly he 
 wrote about these things, and why are they all kept back, 
 and little given except the party proceedings, which he him- 
 self declares that he wished chiefly to forget. It is refresh- 
 ing to come to his two letters to Arthur Young about 
 carrots and swine. I cannot conceive how so many 
 letters could be extracted from the correspondence of 
 a man so immersed in life, without almost a single 
 description of a man, or of a scene, an anecdote, or even 
 
 R 
 
258 CIRCUIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 a graphic account of any of his favourite House of Com- 
 mons occurrences. 
 
 The letters are all well written. But not as Utters. 
 For these they are far too formal and didactic. Still, as 
 expositions of principles, and of his own views, and a few 
 on other matters, they are admirable. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT. 
 
 Spring 1845. 
 
 Bridge of Tilt, Friday Night, llth April 1845. — Here 
 again, with my daughter Elizabeth, and my niece Graham 
 Maitland. I meant to have varied the route the whole 
 way; but this has been prevented by being forced into 
 bad arrangements, and by a very backward spring. So the 
 old round is before me. I shall vary this journal by say- 
 ing nothing about it. Not that I 'm at all tired of it ; but, 
 for the nonce, I am tired of describing it. 
 
 Aberdeen, Friday Night, ISthAjml 1845. — But I must, 
 after all, record days and places. 
 
 From Tilt Bridge we went to Aviemore last Saturday, 
 the 12th. A clear and very cold day. 
 
 On Sunday we went to Cantray, Mr. Davidson's. The 
 way is the ordinary way towards Inverness till the river 
 Nairn be crossed, which is at Craggie; after which the 
 left bank of that stream is descended about ten miles, when 
 Cantray is reached. We got there about two. Cosmo 
 Innes and I immediately got into a gig, and drove to 
 Cawdor, three miles, and walked up Cawdor burn about 
 half-way. I had never seen it before. We had a very 
 merry dinner, with a few neighbours and a large domestic 
 party. 
 
260 CIR C UIT JO UKNE YS. 
 
 Next day, after some further accession to the party, 
 we again proceeded, and got partly in carriages and partly 
 on foot to the top of the burn, and walked all the way 
 down, about two miles. 
 
 It is very original. I know nothing like it. It is all 
 one narrow ravine of pudding-stone, about, at an average, 
 I should suppose, from 150 to 200, or even 300 feet deep. 
 The ravine is probably not broader, and often not so broad, 
 as George Street, sometimes not 50 feet ; while the per- 
 pendicular cut is from 15 to 300 feet deep, reckoning from 
 the walk on the upper edge of the rock to the surface of the 
 stream. If the whole bank above the walk be included, it 
 may be 400 or 500 feet. I say perpendicular height, 
 because the sides of the gully are, in general, literally 
 perpendicular, or very nearly so, so nearly so, that no 
 path has been, or could be, formed at the water's edge, 
 or lower down than the existing walk. It is a deep 
 slice of rough-edged rock. And the whole rock, on both 
 sides, is worn into the endless picturesque shapes into 
 which pudding-stone is so apt to be rubbed. The whole 
 scene is not merely woody, but entangled with wood. Old 
 undisturbed shrubs and trees have rooted themselves in 
 every fissure ; and where they have not room to grow 
 upwards, they grow outward, and project, and hang, and 
 twist, festooned by all sorts of wild trailing plants, so 
 fantastically, that wonder never ceases. And what masses 
 of ivy ! What lichens ! What skins of bright verdure 
 sticking closely to the inaccessible rock ! How the deep, 
 dark water tumbles, and foams, and roars, and whirls ! 
 The trees overhead, and to the very summit of each bank ! 
 The old, dotard oaks dying dimly in their own white 
 moss ! The brilliant worlds of holly bushes ! If I were a 
 bird, Cawdor burn should be my country. There might 
 be, and I dare say are, a hundred thousand nests in that 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1845. 261 
 
 dell, which all the boys in Cliristendom might be defied 
 
 to discover. 
 
 " A steep wilderness, whose hairy sides 
 With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, 
 Access denied." 
 
 We looked into the castle on our way home, and also at 
 Kilravock, and passed close by Holme. We had a still 
 more numerous and hilarious party in the evening. Our 
 most excellent and unostentatious host indulges in the full 
 Celtic garb. Odd enough, at this time of day. But 
 another respectable and middle-aged gentleman, who, 
 though called Mackenzie, is, by birth, education, and resid- 
 ence (till lately), a Middlesex Englishman, does the same, 
 merely because he has shootings here, and is pleased to 
 fancy himself a Highlander. A. strange taste for ordinary 
 life, in its quiet state. But it is a beautiful dress, and I 
 trust that neither it, nor the language and manners it 
 represents, will ever be extinguished. 
 
 The flattish strath of the Nairn used to be called " The 
 Happy Valley," not from any particular felicity of climate, 
 scenery, or seclusion, but from the harmony that long 
 united the six families it belongs to. These are — The 
 Macintosh at Daviot, Davidson of Cantray, Rose of 
 Holme, Rose of Kilravock, Campbell of Cawdor, and 
 Macintosh of Geddes. The devil has got among them in 
 modern times, though not more than among the rest of 
 the sons of Adam. But he was a long while, it seems, of 
 finding out the Happy Valley. 
 
 On the morning of Tuesday the 15th we went to Inver- 
 ness to breakfast, having joined Moncreiff and two 
 daughters at Cantray. The paltry business occupied all 
 that day and a part of the next. 
 
 On that next day (Wednesday the 16th) Moncreifi" and 
 T were honoured by a grand academic banquet. For 
 
262 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS 
 
 above half a century Inverness has been so distracted by 
 local dissension, that when the directors of their Eoyal 
 A.cademy had to elect a Rector about seven years ago, 
 the only thing they could agree upon was a resolution 
 that they could agree about nothing, and therefore they 
 concurred in a request that we two would elect for them. 
 We did so, and got them a capital man, Mr. Gray, who was 
 promoted last spring to the Professorship of Natural 
 Philosophy in Aberdeen. On this vacancy they found that 
 they were as discordant as ever, and they had just the 
 sense to repeat their application to us. We again acted, 
 and think that we have got them another good Eector. 
 For all which we were requested to inspect the school, 
 which we did, and also to submit to be banqueted and 
 complimented, which we did also. So at four we sat down 
 at a long table, with other forty or fifty, in the museum of 
 the Academy. The table was gorgeous with cold meat and 
 spring flowers, and there was no want of ice or champagne. 
 The chairman of the directors drank us and the 
 Queen. MoncreifF replied. I asked a holiday for the 
 boys. And at five it was all over. A very well managed 
 affair. 
 
 I and my comrades then left Inverness, and went to Nairn, 
 leaving Creeffy and his there. Next morning (Thursday 
 the 1 7th) we went to Knockomie to breakfast. Knockomie 
 is a villa — or rather a comfortable cottage with a farm — 
 about a mile from Forres. It stands upon a sort of low 
 knoll, and has a beautiful prospect of that little, venerable 
 old city, and of the Moray Firth, and of the Ross-shire 
 hills, all of which were sleeping in calm, clear beauty. 
 Except that it has no lake or stream, the place is perfect. 
 A most excellent house, in the cottage style, bright grass, 
 a profusion of evergreens and flowering shrubs, and a 
 capital varied, half-flower and half-vegetable garden. And 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT—SPRING 1845. 263 
 
 the owner, Miss Smith, is just as perfect herself. An 
 aged maiden, cheerful, sensible, well-bred, kind, and very- 
 quiet. She took Cosmo Innes, Mr. Baillie, Mr, C. Robert- 
 son, and Mr. Irvine, the night before, within her wooden 
 and ivied porch without any warning and without the 
 slightest disconcertion. And that morning she had a first- 
 rate breakfast for us three, Mr. Davidson of Cantray and 
 another, besides nieces and a governess in the house. Yet 
 this is all handsomely done out of her own two farms. The 
 only peculiarity at breakfast was " Brodie Cockles " — a dish 
 new to me. They were merely boiled in the shell, and 
 were excellent to the taste, with a fresh sea flavour. But 
 I felt them clustered together in a ball all day in my un- 
 cockly stomach. 
 
 After breakfast we proceeded up the Findhorn, a river 
 I knew well when the Landers lived at Relugas, but had 
 not revisited for about fifteen years. I never saw it in 
 greater glory at this season. The birches and larches were 
 just opening their first soft leaves; the haughs had on their 
 greenest herbage; the water was at an average fulness, 
 and as blue as the sky, or as the distant sea; the dry 
 pebbly channel seemed, by its purity and brightness, to 
 invite us to play with it and the stream ; and the day was 
 calm and balmy. Some of the party loitered about Altyre. 
 I went up with two or three of the quiet to the heronry — 
 a royal burgh, and a very ancient one, of these civic birds, 
 nobly placed ; to the Pool of Sluie, deep and eddying, and 
 set in glorious rocks ; to Logie — deserted and in disorder ; 
 and to Relugas ! the scene of many a happy day, and per- 
 haps happier night. It also was in bad order, and "a 
 stranger inhabits the mansion of peace." But the two rivers 
 — the Divie and the Findhorn — the banks, and the rocks, 
 these were the same. And what a combination ! I hold 
 the Findhorn to be indisputably the finest river for scenery 
 
264 CIR CUITJO URNE YS. 
 
 in Britain, and Relugas the most delicious spot on the 
 Findhorn. But it was sad. Neither the shake of Sir 
 Thomas's hand was there, nor the eternal light which shone 
 from his window — the Pharos of hospitality, nor the white 
 frocks playing on the green, nor the joyous family, nor 
 the kind welcome, nor the reluctant, lingering farewell. 
 Yet I am glad that I went. 
 
 We returned to Knockomie to a lunch that most dinners 
 might envy, and left the worthy lady about four, and 
 reached Fochabers at seven, where we found Creeffy, not 
 just impatient for dinner, but plainly thinking such 
 patience as he had great virtue. 
 
 I stopped a moment at Elgin to see to John Shanks. 
 When I came home from the North Circuit in April 
 1844, finding that nothing would be done by the 
 Elginites voluntarily, I set about getting him a monument 
 myself. On this they promised to provide and erect the 
 stone, if I would furnish the epitaph. This I agreed to, 
 and after nearly a year's delay and manoeuvring I was 
 lately told that the monument was up. I wanted to be 
 sure of this, and so stopped and saw that it was so. A 
 plain slab, fixed (by permission of the officer of the Woods 
 and Forests — which permission I had to procure) to the 
 outer angle of the cathedral, with these words on it : — 
 
 Here lyes 
 John Shanks, Shoemaker in Elgin, who died 14 April 1841, 
 aged 83 years. 
 For 17 years he was the keeper and the shower of this Cathedral; 
 and while not even the Crown was doing anything for its preserva- 
 tion, he, with his own hands, cleared it of many thousand cubic 
 yards of rubbish ; disclosing the bases of the pillars, collecting the 
 carved fragments, and introducing some order and propriety. 
 Whoso reverences the Cathedral will respect the memory of this 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1845. 265 
 
 I 've seen worse epitaphs. It is very ill engraved — the 
 words, instead of being run all together like a piece of fact- 
 stating prose, being divided into absurd lines. 
 
 Mr. Baillie, Mr. Eobertson, and Mr. Irvine dined with 
 us at Fochabers, which we all left together, and got to 
 Aberdeen by about five to-day (Friday, 18th April 
 1845). 
 
 Arbroath, Tuesday Niglit, 22cl April 1845. — We were 
 at Aberdeen all Saturday, Sunday, and Monday — the 19th, 
 20th, and 21st. We left it to-day and came here. Near 
 this I saw two things new to me. 
 
 One was Brotherton, about four miles on this side of 
 Bervie. It is a private residence very near the seashore, 
 with a garden which has scarcely any merit in being ex- 
 cellent, for, with a dry, sandy soil, a low elevation, and a 
 sunny exposure, what else could it be ? I saw one fuchsia 
 with a stem three inches in diameter, and another fully 
 ten feet high. There is a slope from the house to the flat 
 below, which is divided into three terraces, each backed by 
 a strong wall, forming capital lines of ornamental garden. 
 But the house is, to my eye, the most interesting. It is 
 very old, as indeed the whole place is, very low, very 
 irregular, and altogether not unlike an ancient fortress. 
 The rooms are delightful, odd places cut out of thick walls, 
 and small, but comfortable, and very diverting. The whole 
 house seems to be panelled, and most of the compartments 
 of panelling turn on hinges, and being opened, disclose 
 deep holes and presses, dry and commodious, where arms, 
 kegs, or captives could be safely and comfortably dis- 
 posed of. We were urged to stay all night, and had 
 it not been for breaking tryst with Moncreiff, whom 
 I engaged to rejoin here, I should have liked to have 
 done so. 
 
266 CIR CUirjO URNE YS. 
 
 The other novelty was Den Finella ; that is, the den 
 of the burn called the Finella, within half a mile of this 
 side of Brotherton, and close by the public road. It is a 
 waterfall of about seventy feet high, the stream, after its 
 descent, flowing away down a deep rocky dell, buried in 
 poor trees, and rich in ivy, ferns, and wild-flowers. No- 
 thing with these elements can be bad ; but the paltriness 
 of the water makes it all somewhat insignificant. 
 
 The defect of Brotherton, even when in leaf, is that it 
 is too bare. It is a beachy place. It is difficult to under- 
 stand how, with its obvious generations of care, it is 
 without almost a single evergreen. 
 
 Perth, Monday Morning, 28th April 1845. — We came 
 here from Arbroath on Wednesday the 23d, and shall be 
 home to-morrow. 
 
 Our cases, here as elsewhere, have been mere dirt. And, 
 on the whole, the weather has not behaved so well as 
 usual. Though with some delightful days, it has been 
 cold and too showery. 
 
 The Advocate-Depute gave us a concert and ball on 
 Saturday evening. There were five ladies and seven 
 gentlemen — the latter consisting of two judges, two 
 sheriff's, and three advocates, with one pianoforte ; many 
 a waltz, polka, and quadrille ; abundance of ice and negus, 
 and no want of laughter. An excellent precedent, not to 
 be forgotten. Public Circuit balls were constant, at certain 
 towns, formerly. I must say something about them some 
 day. 
 
 We processed to church yesterday. A discourse by a 
 
 lately-placed youth called A , who, if he does not 
 
 soon get more sense and less ambition, will settle into an 
 eloquent ass. 
 
 I went afterwards with AVhigham to Dupplin and Inver- 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1845. 267 
 
 may, at which last we dined. I had never seen either 
 place before, and it was not a favourable day. The i^lace 
 of Dupplin I was not struck with. But indeed the con- 
 temptible little miser that owns it keeps it so ill, that the 
 sun itself could scarcely gild it. The house, however, both 
 inside and out, is excellent. One of the few modern 
 Scotch houses not absurdly large, and well filled with 
 pictures and books. It seems to me to be Burn's best. 
 
 Invermay, in foliage and in a good day, must be delight- 
 ful. A very contrast to Dupplin in keeping, it has 
 excellent distant prospects, wild natural banks, the rugged 
 ravines of the May, and constant vestiges of age. But the 
 trees, by their white moss, call out, " Drain our roots." 
 The laird and his brother seem a ciDuple of the most com- 
 fortable bachelors I have almost ever seen. But woe be 
 to the survivor ! I missed a petticoat much. 
 
 BoNALY, Tuesday Night, 2dth A^ril 1845. — We got quit 
 of our criminal friends yesterday about one. 
 
 In spite of a drizzly day, we all went to Kinfauns, 
 which I had not gone into, or over, for many years. The 
 late peer, whom I remember a happy and independent man, 
 with scarcely £500 a year, having got a good estate, of 
 course died largely in debt, insomuch that some of his 
 pictures and knickknacks were sold by public auction. I 
 was glad therefore to find the place in good order, and 
 the house, for which he chiefly ruined himself, not at all 
 displenished. The whole concern is in an excellent con- 
 dition. And an excellent concern it is. The only mis- 
 fortune is that there is too little level ground. 
 
 We then went and dined with Captain Scott, at present 
 tenant of Seggieden. A very nice place ; a kind couple ; 
 and a cheerful evening. 
 
 To-day we came home. 
 
268 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 From Edinburgh to Inverness the whole people are mad 
 about railways. The country is an asylum of railway 
 lunatics. The Inverness patients, not content with a rail- 
 way to their hospital from Aberdeen, insist on having one 
 hy the Highland road from Perth. They admit that there 
 are no towns, or even villages, no population, and no chance 
 of many passengers. But then they will despatch such 
 flocks of sheep, and such droves of nowt ! And in further- 
 ance of this shares are actually up for a railway through 
 Killiecrankie, and by Dalwhinnie and Aviemore ! And any 
 one who puts in a word for the preservation of scenery, 
 or relics, or sacred haunts, is set down as a beast, hostile 
 to the " poor man's rights," " modern improvement," and 
 the "march of intellect." At Perth the magistrates, 
 fancying, as usual with these civic guardians, that money 
 and crowds are happiness and importance, are eager for 
 giving up the South Inch for four railway stations ! After 
 what has been done by their brethren of Edinburgh they 
 need not despair. I visited the ground with their leader, 
 but could not make him comprehend how turf or trees 
 could be of any use to a toivn. The misfortune is that 
 railways have come too late ; they should have put in their 
 claim before the country was made up. 
 
 Our Depute was Charles Baillie. I began with a pre- 
 judice against him, thinking him a stick. But I ended 
 with a prejudice in his favour, thinking him sensible, 
 candid, and a gentleman, dry certainly, but only in manner. 
 
 My studies were the last number of the Edinburgh Review 
 and a novel called Foreman. The pillar of this number of 
 the Review is Stephen's account of Gregory the Seventh. 
 Foreman I have not just finished yet. It is good, but 
 wants spirit. 
 
 I see I have forgotten to mention that Mr. A.'s text 
 began "What are these which are arrayed in white 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1845. 269 
 
 robes % and whence came they % " Though the words refer 
 to certain angels, and not to the Lords Commissioners of 
 Justiciary, yet as there is a good deal of white on our 
 gowns, all eyes were on us for a moment. 
 
 It is possible that the selection of this passage was acci- 
 dental, but it certainly was not so when a clergyman preached 
 at a stiff grim blockhead of an Advocate-Depute, called 
 Samuel M'Cormick, somewhere about thirty years ago. His 
 text was, as he read it, " And Samuel went from year to year 
 in circuit to Bethel, and Gilgal, and Mizpeh " (1 Samuel vii. 
 1 6). These three places meant Jedburgh, Dumfries, and 
 Ayr. The Justice (Boyle) and Samuel, who were stuck 
 up in the front gallery, were visibly much offended, which 
 did not diminish the smiles and winks of other people. 
 
 Any minister who prostitutes the pulpit by such per- 
 sonally punning texts should be thrashed on the spot. 
 This would be the true practical commentary. Even the 
 text puns that are not personal, but expound the subject, 
 are reprehensible, though some of them have been very 
 witty. Swift, Sterne, South, and Sydney Smith have all 
 given excellent specimens of it. 
 
 When Moncreiff was at Glasgow, judicially, for the first 
 time, he went, as he generally does, and heard his friend, 
 the pious and venerable Dr. Brown, preach. He was un- 
 wigged, but perfectly well known in that congregation. 
 The worthy doctor was not dreaming either of this judge, 
 or of Circuits, or any modern thing of the kind, but his 
 text began, " There was in a city a judge, which feared not 
 God, neither regarded man " (Luke xviii. 2). He had only 
 uttered these words when the turn of all heads made him 
 see the learned Lord, and he could hardly proceed from 
 confusion and horror. The text has stuck to Creeffy, the 
 most religious among us, ever since. ^ 
 
 1 Journals, vol. ii. 107. 
 
WEST CIECUIT. 
 
 Autumn 1845. 
 
 King's House, Sunday Morning, 7th September 1845. — 
 I got into the railway train for Falkirk at seven in the 
 morning of Thursday last, the 4th, with my son Frank, 
 my daughter Elizabeth, and Lizzie Thomson, a daughter 
 of my very oldest living friend. Dr. Anthony Tod Thomson, 
 physician in London. 
 
 Moncreiff takes Stirling, and I take Inveraray ; and we 
 unite at Glasgow. 
 
 The only part of my intended route that will be new to 
 me will probably be from Ballachulish to Oban, through 
 Appin. I shall therefore say little or nothing of places 
 already mentioned, but as to these shall only keep the 
 log, unless where anything new happens to occur. 
 
 We breakfasted at Stirling on Thursday, and then spent 
 some hours in that delightful little royal city. I never 
 saw the interior of the castle so well before. Seeing it 
 thoroughly now we owed to the politeness of Sir Archi- 
 bald Christie, the deputy governor, whom I knew a little, 
 and called upon at his official house. He showed us every- 
 thing, and explained everything — both inside and out. 
 There was a little too much haze ; but it was a beautiful 
 day, and clear enough for all objects not very distant. 
 
 Except St. Andrews, I can't recollect any other place of 
 such exclusive historical interest. They have both been 
 Pompeiied, saved by circumstances from being superseded, 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1845 271 
 
 or dissipated, by modern change. It is the old stories 
 alone that still linger in each. Stirling has its buildings 
 and its walks ennobled by its singular position ; but still, 
 it is the old tales that adorn it. 
 
 How disgraceful it is to the nation, and particularly to 
 Government, that the scenes of its history should be con- 
 verted to such base uses ! The place where the Parliament 
 met a barrack-room ! And every other sacred spot equally 
 debased ! I have been often and positively assured that 
 about the beginning of the last war, 1804, the Govern- 
 ment of the day wished virtually to obliterate the castle 
 altogether, by giving it up as a fortress, or as public pro- 
 perty, and getting it all disposed of, by a statute, if 
 necessary ! I have reason to believe that had it not been 
 for a few of the neighbouring families, chiefly the Aber- 
 crombies, this would actually have been done, and that 
 we should have had it all made into a manufactory. 
 Anything is credible after the unquestionable fact that 
 only three years ago Government actually gave up many of 
 the historical fields and green mounds, including, I believe, 
 the tilting-ground, to be ploughed by a farmer under a 
 lease. This error was corrected, no doubt ; but even yet, 
 not entirely. The fearful fact, however, is, that such 
 errors can be committed. 
 
 Sir Archibald Christie's face had the rare honour of 
 stopping a cannon-shot, and the still rarer good luck to 
 survive that feat. But the ball has had its revenge. For 
 the convexity of the one check, and the concavity of the 
 other, with their effects, in twisting eyes, mouth, and nose, 
 have left as hideous a countenance as war ever produced. 
 Yet, such is the result of kindness and good manners, there 
 are few more agreeable persons than this gentlemanly old 
 soldier.^ 
 
 1 Journals, vol. ii. 121. 
 
272 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 In passing, we looked into the Cathedral of Dunblane, 
 which I had not seen for many years. A very interesting 
 relic ; and well kept. It belongs to the Crown ; and the 
 lairds, having nothing to pay themselves, have generally 
 been clamorous for payment from the public purse. It 
 does the Woods and Forests great credit. And its purity 
 struck me the more from having, only a few days ago, 
 gone into the interior of Jedburgh Abbey. What an 
 abomination ! It cannot be described. And under the 
 very lock and key of the noble house of Lothian, to whom 
 it belongs, and who live within five miles of the smell of 
 it ! nay, over the very dust and prostrate statues of their 
 own ancestors ! They can dine off plate ; and they can 
 build Puseyite chapels in Jedburgh ; but they cannot lay 
 out one shilling in protecting a ruin, the ownership of 
 which does them more honour than their title does, from 
 pollution at which the snout of a famished hog would 
 revolt. Yet it is no badness of nature that produces this, 
 to me, utterly inconceivable misconduct, but mere want of 
 thought. They sweep their own rooms because they would 
 see the dirt in them if they were dirty, but they never 
 waste a thought on duties and decencies, the violation of 
 which does not incommode themselves. Yet how they 
 can resist the mere romance of the matter I cannot under- 
 stand.^ 
 
 1 [Although the Abbey is the property of the Marquis of Lothian, it 
 was at that time subject to the right of the heritors to its use as the parish 
 church, which made it impossible for the proprietor to take effectual 
 measures for its protection and preservation. But in 1869 the late Mar- 
 quis effected an arrangement with the heritors which he did not live to 
 see carried out, but which was subsequently fulfilled in a very liberal spirit 
 by his brother and heir the present marquis, who has not only provided 
 a new parish church of great architectural merit, but in order to have the 
 command of the ground surrounding the Abbey (obtaining for this purpose 
 a feu of the glebe), has also provided a new manse and garden, giving the 
 use of the rest of the ground to the burgh of Jedburgh for a public park. 
 Being thus free to act, the Marquis caused the venerable ruin to be com- 
 
WEST CIRCUIT- AUTUMN 1845. 273 
 
 And, the very next day, I saw about twenty respectable 
 and well-behaved farm-servants ask admittance into Melrose 
 Abbey. Instead of having the door thrown open, and 
 being encouraged to humanise their minds by the spectacle 
 of such an edifice, they were sternly barred out, and those 
 only let in (which to their honour was the whole of them) 
 who would first pay a penny. And this Abbey belongs 
 to the Duke of Buccleuch, to that great duke whose 
 piety is such that he will neither allow Melrose Abbey to 
 be seen on Sunday nor give the Free Church one spot of 
 ground, but compels its adherents to worship God under 
 the open sky. Let no friend say^ that his Grace knows 
 nothing of the penny. Why does not he % It is a system, 
 and not any casual impropriety by his keeper. Does he not 
 know that the Abbey is not open to all, and that it might 
 safely be so did it receive one-thousandth part of the 
 attention that the ducal kennel does 1 
 
 We got to Dunira by four. Walked up the Boldercan. 
 Dined and stayed Thursday night. On Friday we mounted 
 as many heights and drove about as many of the valleys 
 of Strathearn as could be done in one day. On Saturday 
 the 6th (yesterday) we came from Dunira to this London 
 made edifice of King's House. 
 
 I have already spoken of all this course, and have no 
 more to say. But I trust that though I were to travel 
 
 pletely cleared, and employed the distinguished architect Dr. K. Kowand 
 A.uderson to put the fabric in proper repair. A heavy belfry which had 
 been placed on the top of the central towei*, and threatened its stability, 
 was removed, beams and struts were fitted in between the nave walls, and 
 the whole stonework carefully repaired and pointed. A replica of the 
 beautiful south doorway leading to the cloister, which was fast decaying, 
 was erected nearer the west end of the nave, and the surrounding ground 
 laid out as an ornamental garden. No ecclesiastical ruin in Scotland is 
 now in better condition or fairer surroundings, and no one would have 
 more keenly appreciated the change than Lord Cockburn, or been more 
 ready to withdraw the censure penned in such different circumstances.] 
 
 S 
 
274 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 it a thousand times I would always have more to think and 
 to feel. My admiration, and even my surprise, increases. 
 
 The day was most beautiful, — indeed, for such scenery, 
 perfect. Quite calm; sun enough to leave the highest 
 summits clear, yet clouds enough to let huge shadows 
 repose occasionally on every mountain-side. It is all most 
 glorious! From the soft, still beauty of Lochearn to 
 the lofty cone of Ben More, enriched with scattered 
 foliage full 1000 feet above its base; and from the long 
 inspiring desolation of the Black Mount, made doubly black 
 by the settling down upon it of the shadows of evening, 
 to the detached and stately severity of Buachaille-Etive and 
 his compeers, who, with him, guard the descent into Glencoe, 
 and frown as darkly as if they had just heard of the 
 massacre, nothing can be more magnificent. God help 
 the poor man whose eye sees nothing, and whose mind feels 
 nothing in such scenes. 
 
 This is a very passable Highland hostel, — better than 
 I either expected or wished. I wanted the adventure of 
 another Shiel House. 
 
 Twice yesterday did I hear the horn and see the scarlet 
 coat of the guard of the stage-coach which hurries people 
 from Fort William to Loch Lomond and vke, versa in eight 
 hours. Och ! och ! 
 
 And now for Glencoe. 
 
 Ballachulish, Sunday Night, 7th September 1845. — 
 And a perfect Glencoe it was. A calm, dun day — as a 
 Scotch Sunday should be — but bright with occasional 
 splendour; every ravine, crag, rill, and pinnacle quite 
 clear, though the far distances were slightly veiled by 
 mysterious gauzy vapour; and an irresistible feeling of 
 pleased awe was inspired by a silence so profound, that it 
 was broken by the bleating of a lamb or the hum of a bee. 
 
WBS T CIR C Ul T—A UTUMN 1 845 . 275 
 
 I will not attempt to describe what is so common, and is 
 yet so superior to all description. It is the Switzerland 
 of Scotland. And sublime as are the savage summits that 
 line the glen, we no sooner slide into the more open regions 
 of Loch Leven, than we begin to doubt whether, after all, 
 the beauty of the water bounded by the mountains of 
 Appin, Morven, and Lochaber be not preferable even to 
 the Pass. My decision is in favour of whichever is before 
 me. And, on the whole, I felt no nationality, but only 
 justice, in believing that a candid Swiss could not more 
 fairly describe some of the best scenes of his country than 
 by saying, " This is the Scotland of Switzerland. " 
 
 Lord Ivory, to whose residence at Fasnacloich we are 
 veering, met us here. We pass to-morrow at Kinloch 
 Leven, the residence of John Stuart, a Chancery barrister, 
 and brother of the Laird of Ballachulish. This will show 
 me, what I have never seen, the upper end of Loch Leven. 
 The still night, and the soft, dark water, streaked by long 
 gleams of trembling light, seem to promise a steady day. 
 The house is asleep ; the ferryman's oars no longer move ; 
 nothing is heard except the murmur of the stream descend- 
 ing through the delicious nest of Ballachulish from the 
 picturesque mountains that overhang it. 
 
 The Ballachulishites are well kirked. That little com- 
 munity of slate quarriers, amounting only to about 600 
 souls, has an Episcopal Chapel, a Catholic Chapel, and a 
 Government Church. In addition to which — this being a 
 site-refusing district — I saw the Free Church worshipping 
 upon a knoll. 
 
 Besides sundry grand commoners, we yesterday passed 
 a brace of dukes and half a brace of marquises — Richmond, 
 Buckingham, and Breadalbane. 
 
 Kinloch liWf^-^^ Monday Night, Sth September 1845. — 
 
276 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 We breakfasted this morning at the house of Ballachulish, 
 one of the laird-occupied Highland houses, where, at this 
 season, the hospitality is greater than the accommodation. 
 I can scarcely conceive a more delightful spot. 
 
 We departed on our nine miles' voyage about eleven, 
 and reached Kinloch Leven about half-past one, rowed by 
 two strong Celts, and steered by the former reporter of 
 Chancery cases. The day did not entirely fulfil what I 
 supposed to be the promise of last night; but, on the 
 whole, it was a good day, — no rain, plenty occasional sun, 
 the summits mostly all clear, nothing wanting but that 
 general brilliancy, which besides intensity, gives variety 
 of light. 
 
 We were all in ecstasies. And no wonder. This Loch 
 Leven (an unlucky name, for it is mistaken by strangers 
 for the Kinross-shire pool) is one of the scenes which 
 nearly defy anticipation. It is narrow — seldom, if ever, 
 a mile broad ; but deep and dark in its waters, lined the 
 whole way by noble, detached mountains, full of glorious 
 corries, which, however, though the loch be set in them, 
 have openings enough to disclose innumerable distant peaks, 
 so as to make the traveller feel that it is not merely be- 
 tween two rows of hills that he is placed, but that he is em- 
 bedded in an universally mountainous country. The upper 
 regions are all black, rocky, and in general peaked ; their 
 sides worn into countless gullies and ravines, of course 
 with water commonly roaring and sparkling in them, 
 though too many of them were dry now ; and the lower 
 portions on both sides were profusely sprinkled with wood, 
 chiefly ash, alder, oak, and birch, and greened all over with 
 bright grass. Nothing can be more absolutely perfect than 
 the contrasts of the blue water, the rich natural foliage, 
 and the black rock. 
 
 And the solitude ! After leaving the slate quarries, and 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1845. 277 
 
 Sir Duncan Cameron's modern town house of Callart on 
 the opposite side, there is an end of man and his works. 
 I only observed one little Highland farm after this, on the 
 south side, and I don't think there was even one on the 
 north. And no roads on either side. I don't mean 
 merely no made road ; but no road at all on which any 
 wheeled vehicle could be drawn, — scarcely footing for a 
 native pony, a soul-refreshing peculiarity, amidst this iron 
 age of railways. The loch is the only practicable access to 
 Kinloch Leven. 
 
 Promontories narrow the loch at two places, like necks, 
 giving at each the variety of an apparently new lake, with 
 somewhat new scenes. I observed only three very small 
 islands — two at the lower end, and one near the upper. 
 They are both flat and green, and attract the eye only by 
 their history. One of the lower ones contains the ashes 
 of the massacred in 1692 ; the other is said to have been 
 sacred once to nuns. There is a fragment of wall upon 
 it, and a solitary tree. 
 
 Nothingseems so ineradicable as the recollection of public 
 injustice. The isle of St. Mungo (as it sounds) is pointed 
 out, after the lapse of 1 53 years, with nearly as much interest 
 as it was soon after the strange massacre it recalls. And 
 I never knew till now that the knoll close beside the inn 
 was what the sentence calls, " The conspicuous eminence upon 
 the south side of, and near to, the said ferry," on which 
 James Stewart was executed on the 8th of November 
 1752. I happened to put my foot into a hole, when I was 
 told that it was the hole in which the main beam of his 
 gibbet was erected, and that it was religiously kept open 
 to mark the spot. Why should the people desire to pre- 
 serve such a spot ] Certainly not on account of the man, 
 nor on account of his believed, and now almost certain- 
 innocence, in which respect his fate, though very rare, is 
 
278 CIR CUITJO URNE YS. 
 
 not absolutely singular. But because he was unfairly tried. 
 An Argyle and a jury of Campbells, very faintly admon- 
 ished by Elchies, and rather encouraged by Kilkerran, 
 sacrificed him because he did not belong to their clan. 
 Had his name been Campbell, he would not have been even 
 accused. And had he been fairly tried, his innocence 
 would not have perpetuated the memory of his story. He 
 owes his local immortality to the misconduct of his judges.-^ 
 
 There is a dark, conical little hillock which, though part 
 of the mainland, stands like an island in the middle of the 
 loch half-way up on the right hand, and, whatever side it 
 be seen from, is a singularly picturesque object. The 
 position of the Episcopal Chapel is most beautiful. It 
 stands on a little green plot by the water's edge, near 
 Ballachulish, in the society of a few trees, close beside it. 
 There is nothing peculiar in this. But where is there any- 
 thing like the mountain right behind it % Almost amphi- 
 theatred by a magnificent corrie, reaching from its very 
 summit to its base, on which base the chapel smiles, and 
 tossed all over by trees, while a stream rushes down 
 through it, and only gets gentle as it approaches the 
 temple of peace. 
 
 Except the doubtful bit of wall on the nuns' island, 
 there is no fragment to testify that man had ever had pos- 
 session of this loch. At first I thought that a ruin would 
 have graced it ; but this was a mistake. It is far better 
 that there is nothing to disclose that its recesses had ever 
 been occupied. The impression of loneliness which im- 
 parts such sublimity to the whole scene, is greatly deepened 
 by its appearing before us now, exactly as it was ages ago. 
 
 After landing, Mr. Stuart, Ivory, and I, walked for 
 some hours up the River Leven — a very considerable, and 
 very rocky, boisterous mountain river. We did not go up 
 1 Journals, vol. ii. 107. 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1845. 279 
 
 to the falls, not having time. Both the stream and all 
 the hills, and each particular rock and gully, are softened 
 by that rich and varied wood which seems to delight in 
 Argyleshire, and is, I suppose, to be ascribed to the 
 showeriness, the soil, and the mildness which seems to me 
 to prevail everywhere in this country near the coast. A 
 few years ago (not twenty-five) the left bank of the River 
 Leven was covered, for about five miles from the junction of 
 the stream with the loch, and high up, with very fine old 
 birch. The whole of this wood was sold by the meanest 
 man I was ever personally acquainted with, for about 
 £80. The purchaser, finding it too expensive to cut and 
 carry away the trees, left them standing, but all peeled ; 
 and there are still thousands of them not yet rotted away, 
 but standing dead and grey. Can there be any doubt 
 that the rich brute who could allow five miles of wood, the 
 ornament of a district, to be destroyed for £80, is now 
 sufl"ering for this in a hotter world 1 Spare him not. Devil. 
 Give him his own faggots. 
 
 Fasnacloich, Tuesday Niglit, 9th September 1845. — This 
 morning I went about a mile up the river Leven before 
 breakfast with Lizzy Thomson — a most indefatigable, 
 but most intelligent and unobtrusive, sightseer. After 
 breakfast our party re-embarked for Ballachulish. 
 
 The Stuarts were all agreeable and kind. What good 
 sense there is in selecting Kinloch Leven for his vacation. 
 He has not yet got a long enough lease to justify his build- 
 ing, and therefore the cottage he now lives in, though as 
 nice as English habits can make it, is too small, both in 
 the size and in the number of its places, to suit even a 
 Scotch minister or farmer. But there the resider in a good 
 London house, and the receiver of about £6000 or £7000 
 a year of equitable fees, retires annually, and is happy with 
 
280 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 his not much used gun and rod, his solitude and his 
 scenery. It is his native country ; and I would believe him 
 to be a good man, were it only from the kindly familiarity 
 with which the elder people all greet him as "Maister John." 
 * I am afraid I must confess that the day was bad. Rain 
 and wind might have been endured, but fog robbed us of 
 our heights. Tourists are not children of the mist. It 
 was a "dark and stormy water." Our two rowers could not 
 have made it out. But we stopped at the little farm half 
 way down, and, half by coaxing, and half by the terrors of 
 the " red Lord," got other two hands, and the four brought 
 us to our port of destination. 
 
 A fter getting dried, we had to go to lunch at the house 
 of Ballachulish, after which we set forward, we in our 
 carriage, and Ivory, Frank, and Benjamin Bell, whom we 
 met here, in Ivory's car, towards Fasnacloich, twenty-one 
 miles off. The whole drive is beautiful, when seen, 
 especially from Appin onwards. But we only saw enough 
 to let us fancy what we were losing. But, just at Appin, 
 it pleased the sun to make one of those sudden and short 
 bursts that often close a dull day. A splendid flash of 
 about ten minutes. Everything was visible, — the old 
 tower of Castle Stalker, which rose within a quarter of a 
 mile of us, the bright moss of the little sea-surrounded 
 rock on which it stands, the Morven Hills on our right, 
 the headlands and islands before us, the glittering roofs of 
 the few houses that shone in the distance, all was revealed. 
 And in this paroxysm of radiance the sun expired. We 
 were in our fog again, and reached Fasnacloich at eight, 
 without knowing what like it was. 
 
 Fasnacloich, Wednesday Night, 10th September 1845. — 
 A day of perfectly cloudless, unchecked, calm splendour. 
 What a day ! 
 
iVEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1845. 281 
 
 I found that this place is about a mile from one of the 
 many heads of Loch Creran. But as no Argyleshire place 
 can exist without a lake, a fresh- water one of about a mile 
 long lies close before it, within one hundred yards of the 
 door. Except at tbe end, where the fresh and the salt waters 
 are within a mile of joining, the place is entirely surrounded 
 by high and properly-shaped mountains, displaying a great 
 deal of wood, which, being all natural, excludes larch. The 
 place is in the usual condition of most Highland places — 
 great once, when retainers made greatness, but now, when 
 rent is the thing, fallen down far below the station for 
 which the laird appeared to be born, and, if not protected 
 by a quibble-proof entail, certain soon to fall into the hands 
 of some base but wealthy Saxon. It is all in disorder, 
 wood uncared for, fences mouldering, ditches choked, 
 steading unpaved, gates broken, garden with its espaliers 
 of white moss and wet weedy walks oppressive with a 
 heavy damp odour. The house patched suddenly up for 
 a tenant, and making one wonder how little sufficed in the 
 days of yore for a feudal chieftain. Everything about it 
 depending on man is melancholy, everything dej)ending on 
 nature beautiful and grand. The proprietor, a boy, was 
 here, and rowed us on his own loch. 
 
 The best part of the day was given to recover what we 
 had lost yesterday, by a return to Appin. We drove to 
 the house, and had our repast on the turf, a little higher 
 up the bank. 
 
 The whole scene — I mean the whole district — is glorious, 
 — the finest succession of sea and land compositions that are 
 anywhere to be found. There is no end of the Creran, 
 which pushes its bright waters into innumerable bays, and 
 presents itself in so many and such new forms, that we 
 are surprised to learn that all these are still the Creran. 
 And then there is such a confusion, or at least such a 
 
282 CIR CUITJO URNE YS. 
 
 mixture, of lochs, and such a strange breaking of the land 
 into islands, or promontories like islands, that when seen 
 under such a sun as kindled all this up for us to-day, 
 nothing can be more beautiful. But still, the eye turns 
 even from these islands, or seemingty islands, with 
 their woods and their culture, and their blue waters, to 
 the iron mountains of Morven ! What a ridge of stern 
 rock ! Apparently as perpendicular as so high a ridge 
 can be ; not a tree, or a visible blade — nothing but sheer 
 stone, upon which all the storms may rage for a thousand 
 years in vain. I am not sure that I ever beheld such a 
 composition of land and water as that which is displayed 
 from the lawn of Appin House. It owes much to Stalker's 
 Tower, standing up upon its island rock — a monument of 
 other days. 
 
 After a sunset which only shows itself at Fasnacloich 
 by the brilliancy of hill-tops and the darkness of shaded 
 valleys, we had a merry, though rather noisy, dinner. 
 Before tea, the girls stole out by themselves, and rowed 
 on the lake, under a soft moon. Their being discovered 
 and joined by some of the gentlemen did not improve the 
 effect of the adventure as seen from the land, for it de- 
 stroyed its peacefulness. 
 
 Loch Etive is one of the things I have been wishing to 
 see for half my life ; and to-morrow, I am to see it. 
 
 Fasnacloich, Friday Morning, \2th Sejptemler 1845. — 
 And I have seen it, well — 
 
 First, for the facts. Yesterday was as perfect as the 
 day before. Absolutely perfect. We divided ourselves 
 into two parties. One, consisting of one Miss Ivory, 
 Frank, Bell, and three or four youths, a guide, two ponies, 
 and provisions, went by land to the head of the loch, by 
 Grlenure. My Lizzy, Lizzy Thomson, Miss Ivory, Lord 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1845. 283 
 
 Ivory, and I drove to the lower end of the loch and sailed 
 up. The land party had to go about ten miles, we about 
 twenty-six. They went over the hills, we went round 
 them. 
 
 We left Fasnacloich at a little after seven in the morn- 
 ing in Ivory's car, and went to a place which sounded like 
 Creagan, four miles oflf, where there is a ferry across Loch 
 Creran. But as it can ferry no horses or carriage, we 
 should have been at a stand had not Mr. Cameron 
 of Barcaldine tendered his carriage and horses, which, on 
 getting across, we found waiting — an open carriage, strong 
 steeds, and a sensible, handy Celt of a coachman. He 
 drove us, through Barcaldine, to Loch Etive, about ten 
 miles. 
 
 On getting there (the Bunaw ferry), my prediction of the 
 risk of not sending word a day before was confirmed, for 
 after wasting an hour and a half entreating, and trying 
 to bribe, and even letting off the red Lord, we could not get 
 a single man to move at the opposite side, where alone 
 tourist boats are kept, and which Ivory crossed to. I 
 thought our expedition ended, when three stalwart quarriers 
 from our own side volunteered their services, and the coach- 
 man, dofiSng his livery coat, volunteered his. They found 
 a boat, our provisions were put on board, and the voyage 
 began. I never saw so good a Highland crew. Tall, 
 strong, sensible, cheerful, willing fellows, and excellent 
 rowers, but the coachman clearly the best. 
 
 We got up at about two, having taken rather less than 
 three hours to the fourteen miles. We looked eagerly for 
 the land part of the expedition, which ought to have 
 joined us here ; but in vain. Every distant rock, and 
 tuft, and stot was taken for them. But they never ap- 
 peared. So, selecting a well-placed knoll, about half a 
 mile from the very end of the loch, which seemed to have 
 
284 CIRCUIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 the best view, we spread our table, literally in the wilder- 
 ness. 
 
 After an hour's contemplation and refreshment, we 
 sailed again, homeward bound. Three hours and a half, 
 stoppages included, brought us back to Bunavy. We 
 there parted with our three maritime quarriers, on very- 
 good terms on both sides; and the coachman took us 
 back to his ferry, where we, on equally good terms, parted 
 with him. Ivory's car received us at his side of the water; 
 and another splendid moon lighted us to Fasnacloich, 
 which we reached about nine. 
 
 It was then explained that the hill party had reached 
 the head of the loch ; but, despairing of us, had gone away 
 before we arrived. They describe their whole route, 
 especially Glenure, as very fine, which I believe, for the 
 mountains imply it. 
 
 So I have seen Loch Etive. There are few things 
 in this country better worth seeing. 
 
 From the Bunaw ferry it runs about fourteen or fifteen 
 miles up the country, is nearly straight, and from one 
 mile to three wide. The boatmen said that for about 
 seven miles up, on the right side, there was, since they 
 remembered, a profusion of birch, which the Bunaw 
 furnaces had cleared away. Whether this be correct or 
 not, there is scarcely one observable stem or leaf there 
 now. No country can be more utterly woodless. There 
 is some tolerable wood for about a mile next the ferry 
 on the west side, and a sprinkling on the same side, 
 very near the top. But these, though aided by a few 
 foliaged ravines, are too insignificant to affect the general 
 character of the valley, which may be described as utterly 
 bare. Not even grass or heather seem to be happy here : 
 at least not the soft green grass, nor the bright purple 
 heather of Argyle. Nothing seems to live, a few oases 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1845, 285 
 
 excepted, but a sort of short, pale, wiry bent. And even 
 this is mixed with stones, which gradually increase in 
 quantity and in size, till, when not kept off by the solid 
 rock, they get entire possession of the summits. These 
 summits stand high and hard, and line the whole loch on 
 both sides. 
 
 But there are four of them which the eye can never 
 withdraw itself from. Ben Cruachan rises from the very 
 water at the lower end of the loch on the east side, and its 
 peaks and enormous corries stand all out full in view, after 
 getting a few miles up. Then on the same side comes Ben 
 Slarive, a savage rock. And then the upper end is closed 
 in by the two Buachaille-Etives (Beg and More), and a 
 third of the same character, of which I can't describe the 
 sound of the name by letters. 
 
 These mountains are the objects ! Seen any way they 
 are grand. But seen, as we saw them, first in the meridian 
 blaze, and then varied by the deep shadows of evening, 
 they are sublime. But both Cruachan and Ben Slarive 
 yield to the three upper giants, not in bulk certainly, but 
 in interest. There is something in the form and in the 
 position of these distinctly separated, conical mountains 
 which made me feel as if I was wasting my opportunity 
 when I looked away from them, though it were only to 
 look at their two rivals. 
 
 The general and strongly impressed character of the 
 scene is that of grey, lonely, sublime sterility. It reminded 
 me of some of Roberts's views of the country near Petra. 
 I need scarcely say that there is no road on either side 
 except for about a mile from Bunaw, for there is no 
 village or even toon, and the two or three poor houses that are 
 detectable are only noticed for their loneliness. The only 
 interesting building is an atom, which they call a church, 
 on the east side, about half-way up, with three bothies 
 
2S6 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 beside it. It is only a preaching-place. I asked whether 
 it was Free or Established % One of the boatmen answered, 
 '' Ou, it 's between the twa, for tliey We fechting aboot it." 
 However, the Established had it yesterday, for a minister 
 of that sect preached in it preparatory to the dispensation 
 of the Sacrament on Sunday first. As we were passing 
 homewards, the people came out. We counted them. 
 Including the minister they were twenty-nine — a large 
 congregation for such a locality. About four or five of 
 them went into the bothies ; the rest went all off different 
 ways, in four boats. The whole scene was most interest- 
 ing. I hope they will have a good day on Sunday. I 
 cannot well conceive any one, whatever his own habits 
 may be, so insensible of the feelings of others as not to 
 sympathise with these poor people in their enjoyment of 
 religious ordinances dear to their hearts, and without 
 which what pleasure or humanity would their situation 
 leave them % I understood it to be the kirk of Inverousken. 
 What cathedral is better entitled to our reverence ? 
 
 Connected with this, I forgot to mention that I spoke to 
 three very nice-looking children at King's House ; and 
 finding that they were the landlord's, I asked the mother 
 what school they went to. " Nae schule at a' 1 There 's nae 
 schules here." " But do you not mean to teach them any- 
 thing % " " Ou ay ; but ou keep a tooior for them. " This 
 tutor, I found, was a boy from a normal school, whose 
 salary consisted of his having the run of the kitchen during 
 the teaching months. She seemed shocked at the notion 
 that even her humble circumstances were to leave her 
 children uneducated. 
 
 The best way of seeing Loch Etive would be to sail up, 
 and then to walk to King's House, about ten or twelve miles 
 off, on the other side of Buachaille-Etive. This would 
 show the upper part of the country, which is the best part. 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1845. 287 
 
 better than it can be seen from below. Descending from 
 King's House, and sailing down, would do also. But this 
 implies a tryst with a Bunaw boat — always dangerous ; 
 and it is always better to trace water and valleys to their 
 sources, than to go down to their opening terminations. 
 Juvat intus accedere fontes.-^ 
 
 Oban, Friday Night, 12th September 1845. — We left 
 Fasnacloich to-day at eleven, and got here by five. The 
 Ivorys came with us to Shean Ferry. The whole distance 
 is only about eighteen miles; but it took six hours to 
 devour this space, because we had the two ferries of Shean 
 and Connel, the first of which took nearly two hours to 
 itself. The boat, though bespoke, was at the wrong side. 
 And then the pulling and lifting the poor carriage, by 
 Celtic arms alone, unaided by any machinery, the scolding 
 and directing — all in Gaelic — and no man master ! The 
 expeditious passage of a Highland ferry would be a 
 much greater miracle than the passage of the Ked Sea. 
 The whole way is beautiful, and in the same style ; a suc- 
 cession of sea lochs, deeply set in rocky shores, the flats of 
 which are woody and cultivated, the heights wild. The 
 delay at Shean gave us a more general notion of Barcal- 
 dine than we got by driving twice through it. It is a 
 beautiful place. And if not seeing the finest sea views in 
 the world, though close at hand, be an advantage, the 
 modern house has been very skilfully contrived. 
 
 A beautiful day. 
 
 Oban, Saturdai/ Night, l'3th September 1845. — The two 
 Lizzies, squired by Frank and Bell, went this morning at 
 
 1 Since coming home, I have read MacCulloch's description of Loch 
 Etive, of which I could not judge before. It is excellent. Nothing gives 
 me a better idea of the scene than his '* Gigantic Simplicity." 
 
288 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 seven to Staffa and lona, and returned in almost exactly 
 twelve hours. I could not inspire myself for such a voyage. 
 So having seen them off (but only through my bedroom 
 window), I have had a day of solitary repose. But a very 
 bad day it has been. Wet and hazy. But I have again 
 looked at this little capital, and continue to think it beauti- 
 ful. It is becoming a great steamboat station, — too great. 
 Each landing creates a flutter which disturbs its solitude. 
 It seems fuller of strangers than of natives. But the birds 
 of passage will soon be gone. My voyagers had a better 
 day than I had, but still not a good one. There was 
 rolling enough of the vessel to satisfy them that I was 
 better on land. 
 
 Having thus noted all that was new in this tour, I 
 suppose I may consider the chronicle for the passing autumn 
 as at an end. 
 
 Dalmally, Sunday Night, \Uh September 1845. — We 
 came here to-day by four o'clock, glad to find these 
 nuisances to travellers, the inn-usurping shooters, all gone. 
 
 The day has had a battle with itself, as to whether it 
 was to be very bad or very good, ever since morning. 
 After many vicissitudes, the final victory, I hope, is with 
 this clear and steady moon. 
 
 I am even more struck than I was five years ago 
 with the country between this and Oban. Only, there 
 has surely been some change of the road, which deprives 
 passengers of a great part of Eiver Awe. We did not pass 
 along its velocity to-day for more than a mile or two. 
 Nevertheless, the whole drive is beautiful. Its elements 
 are, the many-bayed Etive, the River Awe, the loch, Kil- 
 churn, Ben Cruachan, Dalmally, with its church and its 
 own mountains, all enriched by profuse sprinklings of 
 copsewoofl. Cruachan is, no doubt, grand from this side, 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1845. 289 
 
 but it is only from Loch Etive that his merits are to be 
 understood fully. 
 
 Strachur, Monday Nvjlit, 16th Sejjtember 1845. — We 
 went this morning and visited Kilchurn. Much of it 
 has fallen since I last saw it in 1843. Strange that 
 no friend will tell Lord Breadalbane about it, and about 
 his duty. Pinning it all firmly up by using the fallen 
 stones and properly coloured cement, and protecting the 
 tops of all the walls by coping and mastic, and then wheel- 
 ing away the remaining rubbish, killing the nettles, and 
 laying it all down in pure turf, could probably be done 
 for £500. But suppose it cost £5000. Would not the 
 Marquis spend twice this in defending one of his grouse 
 knolls, or even his marquisate 1 
 
 Dalmally never looked grander than it did last night 
 under the moon, and this morning. The tower of the 
 church peering over the trees that hid the church itself 
 would be a striking object anywhere, but is particularly 
 so amidst the solitary masses that surround it. But I beg 
 the Circuit Clerk, and the Macer, and my representatives 
 to take notice that I won't be laid in that kirkyard. 
 Abominable ! 
 
 We left Dalmally about twelve, and reached Inveraray 
 about three. Loch Awe beautiful. We met the Euther- 
 furds near Claddich, journeying towards Ballachulish. 
 Sir Thomas Lauder was waiting for us at Inveraray with 
 his official cutter, and took us to Strachur in its boat, 
 beneath watery clouds and over a dark sea. And, after 
 such spare fast as oft with Murray doth diet, here I am 
 quite ready for that bed. 
 
 Inveraray, Tuesday Night, lUh September 1845. — An 
 excellent and a well-spent day, anything that gets one out 
 
 T 
 
290 ciR cmr JO urne ys. 
 
 of the horrid, dull moisture of Strachur being agreeable. 
 I saw the cutter itself — the very Princess Royal, 102 tons, 
 twenty-three men, and a Navy lieutenant — laying to, 
 close inshore, with great pleasure, -^olus plainly whisper- 
 ing that even I might venture. We all got on board, 
 and, after hours of tacking, got down a little below 
 Minard, and were relanded at Strachur about six, after 
 about seven hours on Loch Fyne. A most agreeable cruise. 
 I wish I had a sea stomach, since my friend Lauder has 
 the use of such a vessel. I should then have seen, as he 
 has done, every interesting point of the British and Irish, 
 but especially of the Scotch, coast. There is scarcely a 
 creek, island, or rock on the shore that he has not explored, 
 nor an accessible ruin or lake ; and all these he has de- 
 scribed in several journals written with considerable spirit, 
 and embellished by graphic pencil and crow-quill sketches. 
 I doubt if any one ever saw the coast of Scotland better. 
 Certainly no one now or recently living has. I have read 
 several of his journals. An excellent work could be made 
 out of them. The best part of James Wilson's book called 
 Voyage round the Coasts of Scotland, being the account of St. 
 Kilda, is substantially Lauder's. I envy these two months' 
 summer voyages exceedingly. They cost him nothing, or 
 very little ; they are dignified by a sort of pretence of public 
 business ; and their pleasures are not entirely maritime, 
 for wherever a friend lives within reach of the coast, the 
 herring secretary has only to anchor, to land, and to reach 
 him. Then the gratification of taking friends, including 
 his daughters and other ladies, on board, and giving them 
 trips, and of wearing a blue jacket and trousers, and letting 
 the moustaches sprout; what can be more delightful to 
 a sketching and geological man, whose digestion, and 
 slumber, and reading, Neptune, with his worst lurches, 
 cannot disturb 1 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1%^^^. 291 
 
 After more of the spare diet, I and my party got into a 
 small toy of a steamer, which is hired out at Inveraray, and 
 reached that place at about eleven to-night, after an hour's 
 calm, mild, lunar sail from Strachur. The passage, includ- 
 ing sending the steamer for us, only cost fifteen shillings. 
 
 Tarbet, Loch Lomond, Thursday Night, 18th September 
 1845. — The heavy rain of yesterday was avoided by being 
 in Court till five. This disposed of all the district guilt. 
 
 The Argyleshire stots make the stupidest jurymen. A 
 Bute man was tried on the clearest possible evidence of 
 deforcement. They convicted him, which was quite right, 
 and recommended him to the lenity of the Court, which 
 was quite wrong. On being asked, and indeed urged, to 
 tell on what the recommendation proceeded, they stared 
 and conferred, and stared again, but had not a word to 
 say. They could give no reason whatever; but though 
 they were made perfectly to understand the necessity, for 
 their own object, of my knowing their ground, they all 
 remained dumb, and just glowered. It was suspected that 
 they wished to acquit, but, finding this impossible, that 
 they gave the recommendation as the next best for the 
 excise deforcer ; and that they dare not avow that they 
 had no reason except a desire to acquit. An Aberdeen 
 jury who had got themselves into this position would have 
 got out of it at once by a cunning pretence. 
 
 We came here this forenoon. A rainy day. But it 
 faired from about two to six, which enabled us to drive 
 seven miles up the loch, during most part of which the 
 Ben was clear to the summit. It was all very lovely, but 
 Loch Lomond should never be seen under heavy, dull 
 clouds. To-morrow for Dunoon. 
 
 KiLMUN, Friday Night, 19th September 1845. — A bright 
 
292 CIR C Ul T JO URNE YS. 
 
 day. We left Tarbet at about nine. Liz Thomson, 
 Frank, and I went a little way up the hill behind the inn 
 at Luss, and had a good view of the lower division of the 
 loch, but not nearly so good as from the top of Inch- 
 tavannach, to which island we all sailed. One of the boat- 
 men said he had rowed Eichardson and me across to Row- 
 ardennan the week in which Lennox the ferryman at 
 Inveruglas's boy was drowned forty-one years ago, and he 
 had also been our boatman Mdien we were here with (alas !) 
 Mrs. Richardson and Sir Charles and Lady Bell sixteen 
 years ago. I engaged him to meet me here again on 
 the 19th September 1861, when it M'ould be sixteen 
 more, — to which he made a very ingenious answer, that 
 as soon as he saw me there then he would be sure to 
 appear. 
 
 After being detained an hour on the water at Dumbarton, 
 where we got into a steamer, having sent the servant 
 and the carriage on by land to Glasgow, and another hour 
 at Greenock, we at last made Dunoon, where Captain 
 H. Dundas told me of the sudden death at Rothesay of 
 John Borthwick of Crookston, his brother-in-law, and in 
 one and a half hours more a car at last landed us here at 
 seven in the evening. The Fullertons are living here, and 
 this is a visit to them. 
 
 KiLMUN, Saturday Night, 20th September 1845. — A 
 baddish day. We passed it chiefly at Loch Eck — a piece 
 of water grandly bounded, but solemn enough Avithout 
 being lowered over by dark clouds. Its gloomy stillness, 
 however, did not prevent an hilarious hour at the public. 
 
 KiLMUN, Sundaij Night, 2lst September 1845. — A good 
 day. 
 
 A large party went to Glenfinart to church in a 
 
WES T CIR C UIT—A UTUMN 1 845 293 
 
 " roomy " chariot lent the Fullertons by a neighbouring 
 cottar-king called Grahame. I took a boat across to 
 Dunoon, and called on the Dundases. On getting home, 
 at one, I went in a car and joined them at Glenfinart, 
 eight miles up Loch Long. My chief object was to see 
 the place, which I knew in its old condition, Lord Ful- 
 lerton having occupied it as tenant for four years, since he 
 became my near relation. It was then in its simple state, 
 ns when Rogers, who had visited the family of Dunmore 
 there, alluded to it in the lines " written in the Highlands 
 of Scotland "— 
 
 Glad sign and sure, for now we bail 
 Thy flowers, Glenfinart, in the gale. 
 
 The neAV and rich proprietor has changed it a good deal ; 
 but, in general, for the better. He has given it a hand- 
 some but sensible house on the old site ; and a broken, 
 disorderly, and rather offensive foreground has been con- 
 verted into about sixty acres of excellent lawn. People 
 object to his garden. But since, to a family far away 
 from purchaseable peas and turnips, a garden was indis- 
 pensable, I could not discover where he could have 
 placed it better. But he need certainly have had no wall. 
 Few owners, however, can resist the temptation of souring 
 their mouths, at a great expense, by hard peaches, because 
 they are their own, instead of buying good ones cheaply, 
 and enclosing their gardens with evergreen hedges in place 
 of flaring stone. The worst thing I saw — and it was very 
 bad — was the conversion of an excellent, free, mountain 
 stream into a long, regular canal, with a succession of little 
 two-feet falls ; and this abomination only for fresh-water 
 fish! 
 
 After getting home at four, Mrs. Fullerton, the two 
 Lizzies, Mary Fullerton, and I, went in a car up Glen 
 
294 CIR C UIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 Messan, at the head of this loch. It is a wild, rocky, 
 picturesque, narrow glen, any one mile of which might 
 keep the pencils of a thousand sketchers going for a year. 
 But what Argyleshire glen would not % 
 
 We got back at seven, had a quiet dinner, and family 
 worship closed the day. 
 
 This Kilmun is a delightful retreat from the mill, the 
 bank, and the bench. Its being better than the more 
 open Clyde is perhaps doubtful. Moreover, it is a bad 
 bathing-place, because there is no possible privacy. This 
 is bad enough for ladies, though they have bathing-dresses; 
 and unless men cover their nakedness also, they may just 
 as well walk as they were born in Princes Street, as bathe 
 at Kilmun, where, besides that the beach is lined by a row 
 of houses, there are not even the rocky nooks that roughen 
 the shore of Dunoon. 
 
 So, for this bout, Argyleshire, adieu ! 
 
 If I had at present my choice of an Eden in this delight- 
 ful shire, I would select Ballachulish. 
 
 But, alas ! let no one who can delay select now. The 
 angel of destruction is hovering over its finest recesses. 
 It is in great danger of being blasted by railways. See 
 this advertisement ! — 
 
 Argyleshire Railways. 
 
 A Company is in the course of formation for giving the benefits 
 of railway communication to the large and important county of 
 Argyle. The principal line is intended to commence at Oban, and 
 to proceed by the banks of Loch Etive to the River Awe ; after 
 crossing which it will run along the north side of Loch Awe to 
 Dalmally, where it will fork — one line proceeding by Tayndrum to 
 Loch Lomond, and there form a junction with the railway already 
 projected from Glasgow into Dumbartonshire, and the other by 
 Glen Ary to Inverary, and from thence by Loch Eck to Kilmun, 
 on the Clyde. 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1845. 295 
 
 The surveys are nearly completed, and so soon as the engineer's 
 report is received, a detailed prospectus and list of provisional 
 committee will be published. 
 
 Edinburgh, \Qth JuUi 1845. 
 
 Britain is at present an asylum of railway lunatics, and 
 one symptom of their malady consists in their being pos- 
 sessed of the idea that all seclusion is a grievance. A 
 canal is soon to join Loch Tarbert to Loch Fyne, destroying 
 my little Virgilian harbour. 
 
 To-morrow to Glasgow. Hech ! hech ! The poetry of 
 the Circuit is over. The sow that hath been washed 
 return eth to its wallowing in the mire. 
 
 But I have forgot to mention a defence that was made 
 for Argyle by a true Campbell when the chief was said to 
 have got Ardshiel killed, though innocent : " Ay, to be 
 shure, that 's the very thing. Onybody can get a man 
 hanget that 's guilty, but it 's only 'Lummore [Macallum 
 More] can hang a man wha 's no guilty ava." 
 
 BONALY, Saturday Night, 27th September 1845. — After 
 four days of trials at Glasgow, I came here to-day. 
 
 The cases were mere dirt ; thirty-nine, of which above 
 thirty were thefts. Such common-places might almost be 
 tried by steam. Only two things curious. One of them was 
 the striking tact of a blind woman, a witness, who identified 
 a considerable number of articles of dress and furniture solely 
 by the touch. She generally mentioned the colours, and 
 distinguished her own from others readily and accurately. 
 The other was a poor Irishman convicted of bigamy. He 
 pleaded guilty, and consequently could have no speech in 
 his defence. But this he ascribed to his poverty, but for 
 which his innocence, he flattered himself, would have been 
 clear. His phrase for this struck me. After Moncreiff 
 
296 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 had given him a very good address, " Plase your honour," 
 said he, " if I had only had money to huy a tongue, your 
 honour would not have had all that to say." 
 
 It was the first time I was in the new Court, An im- 
 measurable improvement on the old cave. Except that 
 the old one, from being a cave, was good for hearing in, 
 for which the new square is very bad. The Judge's head 
 is too high set, and his lordship is his own echo ; not un- 
 natural defects, since the internal arrangements were all 
 usurped by our worthy chief, my Lord Justice-Clerk, John 
 Hope. The imperfections of the roowz, however, are 
 curable. 
 
 David Mure was our Depute. 
 
 My books were both American — Rush, the, Ambassador's, 
 Residence in London, and Prescott's Essays, or rather 
 Reviews. Rush seems to have looked at London intelli- 
 gently. But I can't understand how an ambassador, or 
 his family, can publish, or be allowed to publish, his official 
 proceedings. I thought that the interviews, schemes, 
 instructions, and plots of such men, had been all secret, 
 and sacred. Everything that Prescott writes is sensible 
 and candid. His criticism is so. Without any pre- 
 tension to genius, originality, or learning, all he executes 
 is made pleasing by judgment, industry, and amiable 
 impartiality. 
 
SOUTH CIECUIT. 
 
 Spring 1846. 
 
 BONALY, Thursday, 1M April 1846. — I left Edinburgh 
 on this Spring Circuit last Thursday, the 16 th, and here I 
 am again. I have — and can have — nothing to say. 
 
 My companions were my two daughters, Elizabeth and 
 Johanna. We went to Jedburgh on the 16th. In 
 Court all Friday, and till two on Saturday, the 17th and 
 18th; went to Borthwickbrae to dinner on Saturday; 
 stayed there till the morning of Monday the 20th; went 
 that day, by Langholm and Lockerbie, to Dumfries ; met 
 MoncreifF there ; in Court till nine at night on Tuesday 
 the 21st; and returned to Edinburgh yesterday, the 2 2d, 
 leaving Moncreiff to take Ayr alone. Rainy, cold weather. 
 
 Very few cases. The people are all employed, either on 
 railways, or in consequence of them. There was a child 
 murder at Dumfries, where doctors differed as to their 
 scientific " tests " of the child having been born alive. 
 But its throat was found crammed full of bits of coal, and 
 there were the marks of a thumb and two fingers on the 
 outside of the neck. These practical tests had little effect 
 upon medical opinion ; but as mothers don't generally 
 throttle children that are dead, they were quite satisfac- 
 tory to the jury. This was said to have been the fourth 
 illegitimate that she had disposed of by violence. A tall, 
 strong, dour, ogress. Still, hanging is at such a discount 
 now, that, clear though it was, the prosecutor would have 
 
 297 
 
298 CIRCUI T JO URNE YS. 
 
 got no conviction unless he had restricted. Whenever any 
 of the murderous apj^earances, such as finger-marks on the 
 neck, was put to one of the doctors in defence, the scien- 
 tific gentleman, after parading his vast experience, always 
 stated that however these things might startle the ignorant, 
 they were of no consequence to a person of great practice, 
 and that he had seen hundreds of children born with these 
 very marks. " Ay, but, doctor," said an agrestic-looking 
 juryman, " did ye ever see ony o' them born wi' coals i' 
 their mooth % " 
 
NOETH CIECUIT. 
 
 September 1846. 
 
 Stewart's Inn, Trossachs, Tuesday Night, Sth Septem- 
 ber 1846. — Mrs. Cockburn, my daughter Elizabeth, and 
 Elizabeth Eichardson, embarked with me on a northern 
 voyage, in a carriage on the Falkirk railway, at eight this 
 morning. The carriage had been sent forward last night, 
 and met us at Falkirk a little after nine. AVe breakfasted 
 at Stirling, after which Lizzie Eichardson and I explored 
 the castle and the city under a torrent of rain. We set 
 off about one ; and after leaving our cards for David Dun- 
 das, the new Solicitor-General of England, at Ochtertyre, 
 his seat, we got here about half-past six. The two Lizzies 
 and I walked, and just saw this end of Loch Katrine under 
 a still, grave, peaceful evening. The day brightened before 
 we got to Ochtertyre, and has continued steadily fine 
 ever since. 
 
 COMRIE House, Wednesday Night, 9th September 1846. — 
 We passed a couple of hours yesterday on Loch Katrine ; 
 then went to Callander ; renewed my acquaintance with 
 the Falls of Brackland, which I saw last in March 1811; 
 left Callander about two ; and gliding along Loch Lub- 
 naig and Loch Earn, got here at seven, amidst the blaze 
 of a glorious sunset. All excellent ; but too common, 
 even to myself, for reflections worth recording. 
 
 The world is still paying homage to the genius of Scott 
 
 299 
 
300 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 at the Lake of his Lady. I find that Stewart's inn can 
 accommodate about a dozen of people comfortably, and 
 about twice that number with some decency. But there 
 is now a small steamer on the loch, which goes three times 
 down and three times up daily, and generally loaded. 
 There are omnibuses to carry them on to Callander, be- 
 sides gigs, cars, and private carriages. But they all arrive 
 from Loch Lomond, Callander, and other quarters, expect- 
 ing accommodation at the wonderful and expansive place 
 called Stewart's inn, and, except the twelve or the twenty- 
 four, are all daily, or rather hourly, destined to be disap- 
 pointed. On our way from Callander to that place we 
 counted about fifty people returning from Stewart's in 
 vehicles. There had been above one hundred people at that 
 inn that day. Yet the two peers, Willoughby and Mon- 
 trose, have not sense either to shut up the loch altogether, 
 or spirit to build a proper house. 
 
 Montrose's side of the loch is still bare. It was cut, or 
 rather grubbed out, I don't remember how long ago, but 
 certainly after the publication of the poem ; for I remem- 
 ber Scott, in his indignation, threatening to save the trees, 
 and to disgrace their owner, by getting up a penny sub- 
 scription, and paying the £200 (this, I believe, was the 
 sum) for which they were to be sold. But we observed 
 one of the very finest weeping birches, on the right-hand 
 side of the road going towards Loch Katrine, which we 
 were told that Lady Willoughby had given five guineas to 
 save. I trust, and have no reason to doubt, that she has 
 in store the treasure of many as good deeds. 
 
 Loch Lubnaig, it is supposed, is going into Glasgow, — 
 to cleanse faces and be made into punch. I believe that 
 an Act has been obtained for the supply of what the in- 
 habitants delight to call the Metropolis of the West, with 
 water from this lake. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT—^, jER 1846. 301 
 
 CoMRiE House, TImrsday Mghf^Oth September 1846.— 
 Another fine day, passed in roving, in an open carriage, 
 through the exhaustless glories of this portion of Strath - 
 earn. 
 
 This Comrie House, tenanted by my nephew Eobert 
 AVhigham, the Sheriff of the county, is the very perfection 
 of a small Highland retreat. What can hills, trees, water, 
 rocks, home scenery, distant prospects, and a sensible 
 house, do more 1 
 
 Comrie House, Friday Night, 1 1th September 1846. — 
 Ditto to-day. 
 
 DuNKELD, Saturday Night, l'2th September 1846. — This 
 has 'been a day ! 
 
 We left Comrie about seven; breakfasted at Killing 
 went through the grounds at Taymouth ; and were here 
 a little after eight P.M. 
 
 Of the space between Comrie and Killin I say nothing, 
 except that from the day of its creation, it was never more 
 lovely. 
 
 I have not been at Killin and Kenmore since, I think, 
 1823, when I loitered through the district with Eichard- 
 son and his now deceased wife, and Lady Bell and her 
 now deceased husband Sir Charles. Nor had I ever before 
 come down, or gone up, the right bank of the river, so 
 that all this "was now nearly new to me. I pity the man 
 to whom it can ever become hackneyed. 
 
 The day was perfect. The clear blue sky, diversified by 
 rich white clouds, sailing slowly along, as if freighted with 
 angels enjoying the surface of this beautiful world, and 
 everything breathed upon by airs fresh from Paradise. A 
 finer day never was, or ever can be, in Scotland. 
 
 The peculiarity of Killin is in its assemblage of such a 
 
302 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 variety of j^icturesque objects in so small a space. All the 
 sketchers in Britain might sketch there for their whole 
 lives, and not exhaust it. I had never gone over to Fin- 
 larig before. Besides its own interest, it is a platform for 
 many views. But the burial-place of the Macnabs is more 
 singular, and liker the final resting-place of a race of savage 
 chiefs. It looks as if they had expected to be obliged to 
 stand a siege even in the grave. It is needless to speak of 
 our country parish churchyards. Some of the new town 
 cemeteries are decent, and some even beautiful. But our 
 country ones ! The one at Killin is in a situation fit to 
 inspire any human creature, except a Scotch Calvinist, 
 with proper sentiments and a proper cinerary taste. But 
 what an abomination ! It makes death horrid. Yet 
 lairds, kirk-sessions, ministers, and people, all submit, con- 
 tentedly, from generation to generation. It sinks them 
 lower in the scale of animals than any fact of their his- 
 tory. 
 
 If seeing Ben Lawers be the only object, those are right 
 who say that the south side of Loch Tay is the best to 
 take. For the general scene, I am confident that the 
 north is better ; were it merely because it runs on a 
 higher level, and makes everything be better seen. Oh, 
 how the lake shone to-day ! Bright and unrufl9ed, save 
 when a whisper of breath played with bits of the surface, 
 or the fishes, looking up, left little widening rings when 
 they sunk again, or the progress of a fly rippled the surface 
 crystal; every object mirrored in the water. Much of 
 the hills, on both sides, would, in any other situation, be 
 tame, for they are often without rock, or peak, or gully, 
 or corry, or any roughness. But, as placed, they all 
 harmonise. The peculiarity of the whole scene seems to 
 me to lie in the absence of seats or villages, and in the 
 profusion of little farms and toons, with their irregular 
 
NORTH CIRCUirSEPJ EMBER 1846. 303 
 
 patches of bright grain, their blue smoke, bits of mills, and 
 hamlet trees; the boat, the bleaching of the homespun 
 linen, the peat stack, and all the other appearances of 
 happy and simple rural life. It seems to be a population 
 over the enjoyments and virtue of which a great land- 
 owner might be proud to preside. I am thankful that I 
 have beheld the scene once more, before it be polluted by 
 the smoke, and noise, and bustle of a railway. But Tay ! 
 thou art doomed ! We passed the surveyors' flags — the 
 scientific upas, — twice this forenoon. I wonder how many 
 millions it would take to make me, if it were mine, send 
 the Gallowgate, ten times a day, along that loch. 
 
 Lizzie Richardson and I walked through the grounds, 
 and Iqoked into the hall of Tay mouth Castle, — a noble 
 place, admirably kept. The house much improved, because 
 broken in its outline, by the addition of the library ; but 
 still one can't help regretting that out of so much work 
 and cost, so very little of real architecture has been pro- 
 duced. The central and chief part of the edifice is a mere 
 copy of Inveraray, the worst-looking Bridewell in this 
 country. Yet old Grandtully Castle still stands, for hints, 
 but a few miles off'. We looked at it as we passed. A 
 good old mass, — maintaining a feudal atmosphere around 
 itself. 
 
 A passage down the Tay is glorious. We lost a few of 
 the last miles in the dark, but all the rest were seen in 
 the splendour of the very finest evening. Independently 
 of this accidental charm. Strath Tay is the glory of Scotch 
 straths. Where have we a rival valley to that which 
 begins at Killin and ends at Dundee 1 The lake, the 
 river and its tributaries ; Killin, Kenmore, Dunkeld, and 
 Perth ; the mountains, the wood, the rock, the culture, 
 the seats, and the villages, — I admit no equal competitor 
 for this rich and unbroken assemblage of well-composed 
 
304 CIR C UI 1 'JO URNE YS. 
 
 materials of the best class. It is especially the mixed 
 cultivation and wildness that delights me. The people 
 continued out to-night to the latest seeing hour, securing 
 the bright stooks that contrasted so well with the dark 
 wood ; women sitting at the doors mending the Sunday's 
 clothes, children playing with young calves, whose ribs 
 brightened in the sun ; the ferry and other boats secured 
 in their little creeks, and always protected beneath some 
 great sheltering branch; the trout rising; we almost 
 the only travellers. Though brilliant, everything was 
 still. And a deeper serenity was diffused by its being a 
 Saturday evening. The repose of the coming day seemed 
 to touch the close of the preceding one. And well did 
 the sun do his duty ! How he kindled, Ben More and 
 Ben Lawers, turning every speck of cloud that dared to 
 interfere with him into instant fire, and after dazzling 
 everything, except the cool recesses of the Tay, and the 
 shadows he himself produced, with the softest splendour, 
 died gracefully away into grey tranquillity ! No week of 
 rural happiness and industry could be brought to a more 
 impressive close. There was more truth, as well as poetry, 
 than she probably was aware of, in the expression by Miss 
 Richardson, that " everything seemed soaked in gold." 
 
 Arbroath, Sunday Night, \Wi September 1846. — We 
 left Dunkeld to-day at about ten, and came here, by Oupar- 
 Angus and Forfar, by about five. A very fine day, and a 
 very fine country ; more English-looking than any such long 
 stretch (about fifty miles) that I know in Scotland. It is 
 full of seats, good trees, respectable old spires, and excellent 
 agriculture. The stages from Dunkeld to Cupar, and from 
 Forfar to this, make it far better than the ordinary Strath- 
 more road. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SEPTEMBER 1846. 305 
 
 CASTLF.TO'i^, Friday Morning, 1 8th September 1846. — We 
 got to Aberdeen, after showing Lizzie Kichardson the usual 
 sights, on Monday to dinner ; were in Court all Tuesday 
 and part of Wednesday, on the evening of which day 
 we had another Aberdeen ball at our steady friend Mrs. 
 Milne's, and yesterday came here, with Archibald Davidson, 
 our depute, in his own carriage. 
 
 I forget what I have already said of this Deeside, and I 
 have not the volume here. But if I have not raved, I 
 have been stupid and unjust ; for I now see that it is a 
 fit rival of Strath Tay, not in soft beauty, but in varied 
 grandeur. The whole sixty miles are most noble, at least 
 from the moment that the suburbs of Aberdeen are shaken 
 off, and the Dee is seen glittering under the birch. At first 
 one is afraid that it is going to be too agricultural, but 
 before reaching Banchory this alarm goes ofi*, and the 
 character of a wild though cultivated valley is secured. 
 This impression is gradually increased as we go on, the 
 valley narrowing, the corn-bright haughs lessening, the 
 hills getting more into each other's company, the Scotch 
 fir maintaining a more equal battle with the birch; till 
 at last, on approaching this city of Castleton, it is all pure, 
 striking, Highland scenery. The profusion of birch is 
 beautiful, and of good old birch, with thick, honest, rough 
 stems, such as I thought were only to be seen along 
 Loch Ness; and weeping, not like poor contemptible 
 solitary creatures, cultivated just in order to weep in a 
 garden, but pouring and waving miles of tears, as if 
 they thought the Dee could not flow without them. And 
 the Scotch fir ! profuse, dark, large, with arms tossed 
 about as if defying even the oak, and looking as eternal as 
 the rocks they have taken possession of. It is a glorious 
 firth of wood. The hills are seldom, if ever, ueakv ; but 
 
306 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 their massiveness is grand ; and they all disclose the truth 
 of the great extent of their region. 
 
 The strath is not peopled with nearly so many hamlets 
 and villages as smile along Strath Tay ; but it has enough 
 — with all their accompaniments of mills, dyke-riding chil- 
 dren, colts, peat stacks, and broken carts. And the poor 
 people's houses are, in general, excellent. I did not see 
 a mud one the whole day. They are huilt houses ; and in 
 building, it is not difficult to have doors and windows and 
 chimneys, the absence of which is generally owing to the 
 edifice being made of turf, which admits of little beyond 
 mere wall. And the four capitals of the valley — Banchory, 
 Aboyne, Ballater, and this Castleton — are all delightful. 
 In Switzerland, each of these would be the metropolis of 
 a Canton. The houses are comfortable, and, for Scotland, 
 tidy ; and there is no appearance of street, or of any par- 
 simony of space. Nor has each merely its own neighbour- 
 rejecting, fenced portion, but they are all scattered and 
 tossed about without order or plan, as if each person 
 had been allowed to squat as he chose. This has pro- 
 duced wide, irregular, open-greened villages, a thousand 
 times better than any design could have made. Bal- 
 later is the most striking of the three lower ones; but 
 even Ballater is utterly superseded by Castleton, — the 
 most curious and picturesque of Scotch villages. The 
 approach to it, past the noble place of Invercauld, and the 
 strange Castle of Braemar, till at last it is seen standing on 
 its mountain-circled knolls, with its straggling houses, 
 rival spires, and blue peat smoke, — it is like coming upon 
 some long-heard-of, and first-seen, place in a far-away coun- 
 try. For it has no apparent connection with any place else, 
 but seems to have been formed just because people had 
 got to the head of the Dee, and were obliged to rest there 
 because they could get no further. This impression of 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SEPTEMBER 1846. 307 
 
 solitude is A^ery strong; and it is increased rather than 
 lessened by the little capital seeming to have everything, 
 though in a very humble way, within itself. I found 
 the coachmaker to be the carpenter, and the haberdasher 
 the bookseller. It stands above, and aside from, the Dee, 
 and is dashed through by the rocky Cluny, the banks of 
 which are of themselves sufficient to give a place reputa- 
 tion. The prospects both down the valley and up to the hills 
 are grand, and vary at every step. But neither the valley 
 nor the hills are nearly so interesting as the Castleton 
 itself, which is a very curious place. Were the hills more 
 peaked, it would have a very Swissish air. The impres- 
 sion of its peculiarity, too, is increased by the number of 
 strangers, who, besides the professional slayers of wild 
 beasts, come here merely to wonder at Castleton. The 
 little, nice, clean hostel we are in has one party of nine, 
 and another party of seven, delicate ladies and gentlemen, 
 some with titles, besides our party of five, and sundry 
 individual " heads without name," most of whom seem to 
 have nothing to do but stare and lounge about this spot ; 
 and who look as if adventure and community of purpose 
 gave them a sort of right to confer with each other as 
 fellow-pilgrims. 
 
 In addition to its former Catholic and Establishment 
 temples, there is now a Free kirk. I am told that, with true 
 religious spirit, according as religion is too often practised, 
 each sect lives in orthodox hatred of its brother. One 
 would think that the sight of these peaceful and seemingly 
 eternal mountains — gilded as at this moment they are by 
 a cloudless morning sun, diffusing its blessings equally on 
 them all — might teach them the insignificance of many of 
 their follies. 
 
 The only blot on the strath is Aboyne, which still 
 exhibits all the signs of dilapidation and insolvency. But 
 
308 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 while his woods are falUng, and railways are waiting to 
 sleep upon them, the contemptible old monkey-faced wretch 
 of a beau, who danced at Versailles with Marie Antoinette 
 about sixty years ago, is still grinning and dancing some- 
 where abroad, at the expense of creditors who can't 
 afford to let him die. Every other place seems in happy 
 and respectable order. And there are several of them. 
 I thought Abergeldie the best. 
 
 I should like to explore the many grand and lovely 
 glens that stream down and lose themselves in what an 
 engineer monster would call the trunk valley. I saw 
 something in the Aberdeen papers about the incredible 
 advantages of the Deeside line. I never see a scene of 
 Scotch beauty, without being thankful that I have beheld 
 it before it has been breathed over by the angel of mecha- 
 nical destruction. 
 
 KiNDROGAN, Saturday Morning, I9th Sejytember 1846. — 
 We lingered about Castleton till near twelve yesterday, 
 and then came here about five. The two stages are the 
 Spittal of Glenshee, fifteen miles, and Kindrogan, seventeen. 
 Soon after leaving the Spittal, the Highland appearances 
 abate, and we could sometimes almost imagine that we 
 are degraded again into Lowlandism. But all the first 
 part of the way is admirable. The instant that Castleton 
 disappears, which it does in a mile or so after it is left, we 
 are in a new world. From being surrounded by wood, 
 there is not a single leaf No villages, no travellers, no 
 Dee, — nothing but great heavy mountains, with tops 
 powdered with grey broken granite, a few large stone- 
 streaked corries, solitude, and game. This continues about 
 ten miles up Glen Cluny. And then comes a glorious plunge 
 down Glenbeg. It is literally a plunge — a long, deep, 
 rapid descent, faced at first by a towering and splintered 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT—SEPTEMBER 1846. 309 
 
 rock, aud requiring a mile or two to lay us on the level 
 below. And so we come to the hospice of Glenshee, where 
 we found a very nice inn, — excellent eggs, butter, and 
 oatcakes and milk, which the flocks of Abraham could not 
 have surpassed. A party of live Irishmen went away last 
 week, after being there since the 12 th of August, and kill- 
 ing nearly 1600 brace of grouse. This autumnal influx of 
 sporting strangers is a very recent occurrence in Scotch 
 economy. Almost every moor has its English tenant. 
 They are not to be counted by ones, or pairs, or coveys, 
 but by droves or flocks. On the whole, these birds of 
 passage are useful. They are kind to the people, they 
 increase rents, they spend money, and they difi'use a know- 
 ledge of, and a taste for, this country. The only misfor- 
 tune is, that though some of them try to imitate Celticism, 
 on the whole, the general tendency is to accelerate the 
 obliteration of everything peculiarly Highland. 
 
 I spent part of the hour that we gave to the Spittal in 
 examining its small and very lonely burying-ground. The 
 chapel of ease is quite new ; but one or two tombstones 
 showed that here dust had been long rendered unto dust. 
 I found the following inscription. It refers only to mortal 
 and natural feelings, and is composed with singular sim- 
 plicity ; and its aff'ection is rather deepened by recency. 
 
 " 1845. 
 " Erected by Peter Macgregor, in memory of his son John, who 
 died at Inverherothy, June 1844, aged 22. Low he lies here in 
 the dust ; and his memory fills parents, sister, and brother with 
 grief. Silent is the tongue that used to cheer them." 
 
 The sheep are evidently getting the better of the grouse 
 throughout all the lower part of Glenshee, and even of 
 Glenbeg, and there cannot be better hill pasture. This 
 has been a grassy season, moist and warm in summer, and 
 
310 
 
 CIRCUl 7 ■ JO UKNE YS. 
 
 the verdure generally has been remarkable. All over the 
 whole of these straths and glens the heather and the nut- 
 brown ferns have been beautifully mixed, and contrasted 
 not only with bright gleams, but with large vivid fields of 
 the very finest green. 
 
 Bridge of Tilt, Sunday Morning, 20th September \M^. — 
 We left nice, kindly Kindrogan yesterday about twelve, 
 and came here by three or four, amidst dull, drizzling, 
 foggy rain. The wild and secluded Eden of Fascally, 
 which we went through, looked as well as it could ; and 
 so did the bridge in the pass, which we went down to. 
 
 My object in coming here is to show the district to 
 Lizzie Eichardson, and Glen Tilt to myself, which I have 
 never seen. But it is not easy to see it now. I wanted 
 to go direct from Castleton by the glen or glens to this. 
 But there is no road for any carriage, or even car, which is 
 very unfortunate, as my equestrian, and tliirty-mile-a-day- 
 pedestrian, days are over. But had they been in their 
 ancient vigour, the traveller, though even in quest of such 
 innocent things as botany, geology, or scenery, is now 
 stopped by his Grace the Duke of Leeds, the tacksman of 
 the Mar Lodge shootings, who says that he has a right to 
 protect the deer from disturbance. The public says he 
 has no such right ; but as there is no town at hand with 
 its contemptuous citizens, of course the steady persever- 
 ance and the long purse of the single nobleman will soon 
 get the better of the poor Celtic slave, the irritated 
 tourist, the sulky drover, and even the London news- 
 papers, who, in this slack season, have taken up the case. 
 And then, at this lower end of the glen, another Grand 
 Duke — he of Atholl — has been pleased to set his gates 
 and his keepers, and for the same reason, that he may get 
 more deer to shoot easily. His grandfather, the last sane 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SEPTEMBER 1846. 311 
 
 duke, who died about twelve or fifteen years ago, made a 
 private drive several miles up the glen, and although he 
 w^as by far the greatest deer-killer in Scotland, he not only 
 permitted, but encouraged strangers to use it freely. His 
 son, the duke v/ho died last week, had been confined as 
 a lunatic above forty years in England; the estate was 
 managed, after his succession, by his brother Lord Glen- 
 lyon, and on his death it fell under the despotism of his 
 son, who has, by the lunatic's recent death, become the 
 duke within the last six days. It pleased him and his 
 father to keep Glen Tilt to themselves and their game- 
 keepers ; and, ever since, it has required a ducal ukase to 
 see this portion of God's creation. This is not easily 
 obtained. I had fortified myself by a letter from Whigham, 
 who had also spoken to his lordship; and whenever I 
 arrived I wrote a note with respectful compliments, etc., 
 and re-duking and re-gracing him, and humbly begging 
 that such a worm might be permitted to set its base wheels 
 on this once free drive. The great man was engaged, but 
 I got a gracious answer from his brother, enclosing a 
 regular, partly printed pass. 
 
 But the day is bad, and in as bad a style, for what we 
 want, as is possible ; heavy, misty rain, hiding the hills, 
 covering everything with one dull hue, wetting one's skin, 
 and, worse than all, printing a wheel-mark in the mud of 
 the drive. But having got the pass we must use it ; else 
 the beast would roar. 
 
 The view from this window recalls the established feud 
 between the Atholls and the owners of Lude, whoever 
 these may be. Their kingdoms are too near to let the 
 rival sovereigns be on good terms. But, besides this, the 
 last (sane) duke, a man not to be rubbed against the hair, 
 succeeded in establishing his strange claim of a right to 
 shoot over Lude. As soon as he obtained his decree. 
 
312 CIK CUri JO URNE YS. 
 
 his Grace, instead of declining to exercise so offensive a 
 privilege, which his own boundless forests made unneces- 
 sary for his own sport, proceeded to annoy General 
 Robertson, his neighbour and legal antagonist, by a grand, 
 ostentatious day's deer-shooting over the lands of Lude. 
 But the General out-manoeuvred him by a move which 
 everybody admired. His lawn was ornamented by eight 
 or ten cannons. These were distributed conveniently, 
 and wherever the great man and his tail appeared, off 
 went the guns, startling every hill and glen by their 
 echoes, of course off went the deer, and his grace had 
 nothing for it but to retire, cursing, with every ball in his 
 rifles. 
 
 "Bridge of Tilt, Sunday Night, 20th Sejjtember 1846. — 
 We got up the Tilt, to a mean-like place called the 
 Forest Lodge, eight miles up. The magic of sunshine 
 would, of course, have made it a different sort of a thing ; 
 but still, in so far as mere seeing was concerned, we saw 
 it all distinctly enough. 
 
 It is not the least like what I supposed. Ever since 
 the days of Playfair and Seymour, I have heard so much 
 of the geological treasures of Glen Tilt, that I fancied it to 
 be all a bare, gullied, rocky valley. Whereas superficially, 
 and to the ungeological eye, there is almost no rock, 
 except in the very bed of the stream, which is all rock 
 together ; the lower part of the glen is all wood, and 
 the upper part, especially on the left bank, is softened 
 by the purest and the finest turf I ever saw at such an 
 elevation. 
 
 In order to see the wooded part, which reaches, I should 
 suppose, about three or four miles above Blair, it would 
 be necessary to get down to near the very river, which we, 
 with a carriage, could not do. Because the drive road is 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SEPTEMBER 1846. 313 
 
 high above it ; so high that the existence of the torrent is 
 only known by its roar, and by a few occasional glimpses 
 that have been secured artificially. And though there be 
 a profusion of excellent wood for the scene, particularly a 
 great deal of admirable birch, it is all nearly superseded 
 by the abominable larch poles with which the whole of 
 Atholl is defaced. The bed, and the near banks of 
 the river, must be full, every step, of striking picturesque 
 beauty; but from our position we could not make its 
 acquaintance ; and if there be no made footpath below, 
 nobody, except a splash-defying geologist, can. 
 
 To us, therefore. Glen Tilt, properly speaking, only began 
 where the planted and preserved wood ceased. A carriage- 
 borne visitor knows, and indeed feds, that he is in a glen 
 while the wood lasts, but he sees few particulars, and does 
 not understand the thing till he escapes into the free 
 valley. He then finds himself in the loveliest of glens. 
 It is very narrow , the stream dashes through curious 
 plates of edge-placed rocks, and tumbles over innumerable 
 little precipices ; it is sprinkled along its sides by birches 
 and mountain ashes, standing sometimes in groups, but 
 most singly ; and, while the remote summits are heathered 
 to the entire satisfaction of stags and moorfowl, the lower 
 sides of the hills are covered, especially on the left bank, 
 with beautiful turf. If my soul ever goes into the body 
 of a sheep, I trust that the south side of Glen Tilt may be 
 my pasture. I could nibble there for ever. It is all 
 vegetable emerald. 
 
 We fed our horses at the lodge, where we blew up a 
 good peat fire, saw a number of deer on the horizon of the 
 hill nearest us, and had much talk, inside with a little girl, 
 who seemed to be left in charge of the establishment, 
 including Sandy, an infant, while all the rest were at 
 church at Blair, and outside with an old, clear, grey-eyed, 
 
314 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 telescoped keeper, who surprised us by his low and freely 
 expressed opinion of his ducal master. 
 
 There is a carriage drive for about twelve miles 
 from Braemar, so that there is only a space of about 
 eight or ten miles between that and the Atholl 
 drive. Through this space there is at present only a 
 footpath, and this closed. It is very natural for these 
 Grafs to keep their strath within their own power, and 
 to protect their deer-stalking, the most manly of British 
 sports. But nothing would exalt their dignity, as the 
 lords of such scenes, so much as to lay them open, hy a 
 'private road, to the eijes of such passengers as they can trust. 
 A general authority might be given to the innkeepers, 
 whose houses would be ruined by being deprived of the 
 power, if it was abused, to send strangers through ; for the 
 necessity of always making a personal application to the 
 proprietor is a virtual prohibition. 
 
 We afterwards went and saw the falls of the Bruar; 
 and to-morrow for Perth. 
 
 Perth, Monday Night, 2lst September 1846. — Came here 
 to-day ; a beautiful day. Walked through Fascally ; and 
 took Liz Richardson into Dunkeld. The interior of the 
 cathedral thoroughly Scotch, being most beastly. The 
 square tower will certainly be down, because the "great 
 dukes," as Perthshire delights to call those of Atholl, can't 
 afford £20 to pin it up. 
 
 TuLLlEBOLE, Saturday Morning, 26th September 1846.— 
 The Court occupied us in Perth all Tuesday, Wednesday, 
 and Thursday, and about an hour yesterday. The only 
 interesting case — a murder, by poisoning — went off, on 
 a doubt of the relevancy of part of the charge. 
 
 We then came here. Miss Richardson and I visited 
 
NORTH CIRCUir— SEPTEMBER 1846. 315 
 
 Lochleven Castle by the way. A mean and melancholy 
 residence Mary must have had of it, especially considering 
 her habits and folly. Her friend Elizabeth would have 
 swum ashore every forenoon, or would have consoled her- 
 self by Greek, or by successful plots. 
 
 Often as I have been invited, both by Sir Harry and 
 his son, I was never at Tulliebole before, and am much 
 surprised at it. I had fancied it a tall keep, standing 
 nearly treeless, on a black moor. And no doubt it, like 
 all Kinross, was black enough a few years ago. But now 
 industry has transformed it into a good grassy and oaty 
 country ; and I find some most respectable old trees round 
 the house, and an admirable small castle. A delightful 
 castle, inside and out. The date, 2d April 1608, and two 
 scriptural texts carved above the door, a tower, walls seven 
 feet thick, turrets, odd, small windows, queer irregular 
 little up-and-down bits of stairs, and a general air of 
 quaint solidity and primitive awkwardness, give it all the 
 charm of ancient habits, which, in this instance, is not dis- 
 turbed by the slightest attempt at modern innovation. 
 The dining-room alone seems, from its size and its height, 
 to be too good for an old edifice. But it is as old as the 
 rest. The castle's recent history was rather curious. 
 When Lord Moncreiff's father, Sir Harry, succeeded, the 
 property was worth less than even the living of Black- 
 ford, which he held. He was therefore very jDoor, with 
 several brothers and sisters to educate. The family 
 chateau was in very bad order, and instead of trying to 
 keep it up, it was decided that the best way was to take 
 the roof off and sell its materials, and to let the whole 
 concern go down. This was done ; many of the best trees 
 were cut, and the castle stood as an abandoned ruin from 
 1771 till 1801, when Sir Harry was able to put on a new 
 roof and windows, and to turn out yEolus and the crows. 
 
316 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 The en'or of the place is in not cutting trees and letting 
 in light and air. Its misfm'kme is, that it is in Kinross- 
 shire, the most oozy and melancholy of Scotch surfaces. 
 We were treated to the novelty of a fair day at Kinross 
 yesterday ; but the weather is making up for this absurd- 
 ity to-day. 
 
 So we proceed to town, minus my Lizzy, who has 
 remained in Perth on a visit, and this Circuit is over. 
 
 I have read nothing in particular, and very little in 
 general. The only entire book has been Cyril Thornton, 
 by the late Captain Hamilton, the brother of the learned 
 Sir William and the Ensign O'Doherty of the Nodes 
 Ambrodance. There is not a word of the novel good, except 
 the Scotch scenes, which are all excellent. 
 
GLASGOW CIECUIT. 
 
 Winter 1846. 
 
 BoNALY, 2%th December 1846. — Lord Mackenzie and I 
 performed the Glasgow Winter Circuit last week — a very- 
 insignificant affair. About thirty-seven cases, of which 
 about thirty were vulgar thefts. AVe went on the morn- 
 ing of Monday the 21st, and were done on the evening of 
 Wednesday the 23d. 
 
 Only two things struck me. One was that the ladies 
 who expected transportation had all, quite plainly, concerted 
 that they were to enact a faint when the reality of that 
 doom was announced. Accordingly each, in her turn, as 
 soon as the word transportation was uttered, cast up her 
 eyes, clasped her hands, screamed a very ill-acted scream, 
 and then pretended to fall back into the arms of a female 
 who sat behind apparently for the very purpose of receiv- 
 ing them ; after all which she stumped downstairs cursing, 
 and the sound of a battle with the officers closed each 
 one's scene. The misfortune was that their teacher had 
 made them all do it in the very same way. 
 
 The other was the remark of a Glasgow thief, who had 
 been often imprisoned in vain, and on having his trade 
 destroyed, by our sentence, for ten years in this country, 
 expressed his feelings in the language of the commercial 
 place he belonged to. On being told that his trial had ended 
 in transportation, he first looked at the judges with a stare 
 and an exclamation of surprise : " Ay ! " and then turned 
 round to the gallery, and remarked with the greatest cool- 
 ness, " There 's a tvind-up for you I " 
 
 •617 
 
WEST CIECUIT. 
 
 Spring 1847. 
 
 BoNALY, 2d May 1847. — The Spring Circuit now over 
 M^as so expeditionless and commonplace, that I merely 
 record the dates. 
 
 On the evening of the 7th of April I went alone to Stir- 
 ling, where I joined Moncreiff. The business kept us there 
 till the evening of Saturday the 10th, when I came home, 
 leaving Moncreiff, who wished to remain for some visits. 
 But he signalised the Circuit by tumbling downstairs ; an 
 alarming fall, attended with severe bruises and a good 
 many cuts, and much bleeding. However, two days of bed 
 and a week's repose made him all right. 
 
 On Monday the 12th Mrs. Cockburn and I went from 
 Bonaly to Edinburgh, where after being joined by Mis& 
 K. Thomson, we went at ten o'clock, on rails, to Glasgow. 
 We there got into a respectable hired carriage, and went 
 to Luss, where we stayed all night. Next day we went to 
 Inveraray. The horses stuck in trying to haul us up to 
 Eest-and-be-Thankful ; which obliged us to wait till we 
 got other horses from Cairndow ; and gave us an excellent 
 opportunity of treasuring the beauties of Glencroe. 
 
 All the guilt of Argyle and Bute was disposed of on 
 Wednesday the 14th. 
 
 On Thursday the 15th we departed at eight in the 
 morning; and going by Dalmally, Tyndrum, and Glen- 
 falloch, reached Tarbet about seven in the evening. Next 
 
 318 
 
WEST CIRCUIT—SPRING 1847. 319 
 
 day (Friday the 16tli) we got to Glasgow for the half-past 
 three train, and were at home again by about seven. 
 
 The weather, though cold to the skin, was most beautiful 
 to the eye. I won't soon forget the evening from Glen- 
 falloch to Tarbet, and the unwillingness of the sun to 
 quit the top of Ben Lomond. 
 
 On Monday the 19th Mrs. Cockburn and I and Elizabeth 
 went to Glasgow. These two returned here on Friday the 
 23d. I remained in Court all day, till Saturday at ten at 
 night, when the horrors of a Glasgow Sunday drove me 
 here, which I reached between one and two in the morning. 
 After a delicious 'pech among my ribuses, hyacinths, and 
 primroses, I returned by about ten on Monday morning 
 (26th), and continued till Thursday the 29th, when we 
 were finally liberated, and got here (to find my hyacinths 
 nearly all smashed by a hurricane) in the evening. 
 
 There were ninety-six indictments, the greatest number 
 ever served for one Circuit at Glasgow. Of these, I should 
 suppose, nearly ninety were tried, — a most efi'ectual clear- 
 ing out. Nor was it all mere paltry common thefts. 
 There were murders, and large forgeries, and railway and 
 steamboat mismanagements, and fire-raising, and abundance 
 of bad robberies, and, in short, a respectable infusion of 
 dignified crime. Thirteen of the culprits had been previ- 
 ously convicted in the Justiciary, i.e. had defied long 
 imprisonment to frighten or reform them. And there 
 were probably twice thirteen whose conduct had proclaimed 
 the same fact after sentences by Sheriff's. 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT. 
 
 Autumn 1847. 
 
 Dumfries, 20th September 1847, Monday Night. — The 
 old round, so I shall say nothing about it. Musing along 
 in the carriage to-day, I thought 1 had better try to recall 
 some of the features of our ancient Circuits, which time 
 has effaced. I have known Scotland, Circuitously, for 
 above forty years. Many curious recollections arise on 
 looking back on such a travelled road. The shades of 
 many old lords, famous barristers, notorious provosts, 
 sonorous macers, formal clerks, odd culprits, and queer 
 witnesses reappear. But like wayside objects that we 
 cast behind us on a journey, they cannot all be retained, 
 and many must be let die. Some things, however, may 
 be worth preserving. 
 
 Those who are born to railroads, or even to modern 
 mail-coaches, can scarcely be made to understand how we, 
 of the previous age, got on. The state of the roads may 
 be judged of from two or three facts. There was no bridge 
 over the Tay at Dunkeld, or over the Spey at Fochabers, 
 or over the Findhorn at Forres, nothing but wretched, 
 pierless ferries, let to poor cottars, who rowed, or hauled, 
 or pushed a crazy boat across, or more commonly got 
 their wives to do it. There used to be no mail-coach 
 north of Aberdeen, till, I think, after the battle of 
 Waterloo. It consisted of a sort of chaise, drawn by two 
 horses, and lield three persons, two of them placed as usual 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1847. 321 
 
 in a chaise, and the third stuck into a kind of sentry-box 
 opposite, with his back to the horses, and, of course, there 
 were no front windows. To reach Inverness by the mail 
 thirty or even twenty-five years ago took only about nine 
 hours short of the time required to get to London. If the 
 direct Highland road was preferred, then there was neither 
 public conveyance nor post-horses. It was necessary to 
 take the same horses all the way from Perth, and then the 
 journey occupied three entire days from Perth and four 
 from Edinburgh. I once came from Inverness to Perth with 
 the Justice-Clerk, Charles Hope, who was always very kind 
 to me, and used to take me about with him ; and our 
 days' work, with his four horses, were these : The first day 
 we got to Kinrara, where we dined with the famous, 
 clever, agreeable, profligate old Duchess of Gordon, who 
 gathered all the neighbours within many miles for a ball 
 The second day brought us, towards its close, to Dalnacar- 
 doch ; the third to Perth. Of course we had to rest and 
 feed the steeds every stage. Even the public coach, when 
 set agoing, delighted the lieges by making them sleep only 
 two nights by the way. They could only reach Perth (the 
 Queensferry very bad) the first day. Starting next morn- 
 ing at five, Pitmain was accomplished about nine at night, 
 and Inverness appeared on the evening of the third day. 
 The ark of a vehicle was generally moved by three horses, 
 but for the stage between Dalnacardoch and Dalwhinnie it 
 had four, and sometimes it had only two ; and no set ever 
 escaped with a single stage. 
 
 It was not just so bad on other Circuits, but it was bad 
 enough. Dumfries and Ayr were both unattainable in 
 one day ; and Inveraray was out of the world. Even 
 Glasgow was a good day's work ; and hence the inns next 
 it, and next Edinburgh, were excellent, for Scotch inns of 
 that day, and were generally crowded everj^ night. The 
 
 X 
 
322 CIRCUJ TJOi TRNE VS. 
 
 fact is incredible now — but it is a fact — that there were 
 few hostels more resorted to by newly married pairs than 
 those of Midcalder, Uphall, Holytown, Noblehouse, and 
 Blackshiels. These now mean ruins were then bowers of 
 Hymen. It was not distances or bad roads that were the 
 obstacles to progress, so much as the want of horses. 
 
 What it must have been a few years before my time 
 may be judged of from Bozzy's Ldier to Lord Braxfielcl, 
 published in 1780. He thinks that besides a carriage 
 and his own carriage horses, every judge ought to have 
 his sumpter horse ; and ought not to travel faster than the 
 waggon^ which carried " the baggage of the Circuit." I 
 
 ^ I don't know the history of tliis pamphlet. It is a declamation against 
 the vices of the criminal judges, which seem to have been in 1780 nearly 
 the same as those sometimes ascribed to them now. But us Boswell's 
 father, to whom Braxfield succeeded, had been one of them, I doubt if he 
 meant to attack them all. And as the letter is addressed to Braxfield, 
 on his promotion to the criminal bench, he could have given no ground for 
 it. The defects, or habits, for which they are abused, are levity, careless- 
 ness, partiality, indecorum, pecuniary shabbiness, etc. 
 
 Speaking of the waggon, which I nowhere else ever heard of, he says 
 (p. 25) : — "The Lords of Justiciary should not contract their travelling 
 equipage into that of a couple of private gentlemen on a jaunt of pleasure, 
 but should remember that it is the train of a Court composed of different 
 members. Formerly every one of the j udges had his led horse— his sumpter 
 — in the procession. The disuse of that piece of pageantry may be for- 
 given, though not applauded. But the abolishing of a covered waggon 
 for the baggage of the Circuit, though a paltry saving, is a great grievance. 
 Without it, how shall the mace, how shall the ollicial clothes of the trum- 
 peters — nay, how shall the record of the Court, and the essential papers, 
 be carried ? Not to mention the gowns and clothes of others, who ought 
 to be decently dressed. Without it there must be such shifts and such 
 pinching as is to be found only in a company of strolling players. Shall 
 the mace, the badge of authority, be crammed into the boot of a coach, 
 amongst black ball, shoe bruslies, and currycombs ? the trumpeters be 
 forced to ride in their official clothes, and look shabby ? the embroidered 
 G,R, upon the breast of their coats be turned out to the rain and the tem- 
 pest, as poor Lear was turned out by his own daughters ? The record of 
 the Court, the indictments, criminal letters, precognitions, etc., must be 
 at the mercy of the weather. The four pleas of the Crown may be blown 
 about by the lour winds of heaven," etc. 
 
 There is some luore sense in the pamphlet than this, liowever, but not 
 much 
 
SOUTH CJRCUrj AUTUMN 1847. 323 
 
 understood from Hope that after 1784, when he came to 
 the bar, he and Braxfield rode a whole North Circuit ; and 
 that, from the Findhorn being in flood, they were obliged 
 to go up its banks for about twenty-eight miles, to the 
 Bridge of Dulsie, before they could cross. I myself rode 
 Circuits, when I was Advocate-Depute, between 1807 and 
 1810. The fashion of every depute carrying his own shell 
 on his back, in the form of his own carriage, is a piece of 
 very modern dignity. 
 
 This slowness of movement, and badness of up-putting, 
 prevented ladies from accompanying lords so habitually as 
 they do now. But to make up for this, every judge car- 
 ried about a lately fledged advocate as his humble friend. 
 To be seen travelling Circuit with my lord, was thought 
 such a feather in a youth's cap, that his friends never 
 allowed him to decline the honour. Decline being aide-de- 
 camp to the general ! But, Lord, it was dull ! I never 
 knew one victim that enjoyed the sacrifice. There could, 
 for weeks alone together, be no cordiality between age 
 and youth, patronage and dependence, levity and dignity. 
 Even Hope's kindness, and cumbrous eff'orts to be jolly, 
 could not save it from oppressiveness. With most others, 
 it was the 'peine forte et dure. The sedate driving, the 
 two-hours pauses every stage, the disrespect of taking 
 refuge in a book, the positive insult of walking off alone, 
 the condescending remark of my lord, only so much the 
 worse when it was intended to be gay, the respectful 
 acquiescence of " the young man." Och ! och ! it was 
 dreadful. Nearly fifty years have not yet effaced Lord 
 Mackenzie's sufferings under Lord Craig. 
 
 There is nothing in which the old Circuits differed more 
 from the modern than in the paucity of their business 
 and the excess of their politics. Little as the business is 
 now, it is at least fivefold what it was formerly. To be 
 
324 CIR C UI T JO URNE VS. 
 
 sure, being in no want of time, they wasted it freely. I 
 have heard Jeffrey say that if there was only one cause in 
 the world, it would never be done at all. It is only neces- 
 sity that produces judicial expedition. The old debates on 
 relevancy on every indictment, the technical objections to 
 witnesses, the long harangues to juries in every case, the 
 written verdicts, the parents of endless additional objections 
 and discussions, these, and much other useless and teasing 
 weft with which the woof of our old practice was crossed, 
 made every trial, however clear and insignificant, a matter 
 of keenness, pertinacity, eloquence, and sweat. That fifteen 
 cases may be disposed of in eight hours, and that a Depute- 
 Advocate may do his duty well, and yet not address a 
 jury once in fifty trials, and that prisoners' counsel may 
 decline addressing in the great majority of cases — these 
 facts, with which we are now quite familiar, would cer- 
 tainly be discredited if they were told to Braxfield in 
 Elysium. 
 
 To make up for want of business, our predecessors 
 exerted themselves powerfully as political trumpets. 
 What harangues ! about innovation, Jacobinism, and the 
 peculiar excellence of every abuse. No judge could pre- 
 serve his character, and scarcely even his place, for a 
 month, who was to indulge in such exhibitions now. 
 But that time applauded them. For example, when I 
 was Advocate-Depute, with Hope as Justice-Clerk, at 
 Aberdeen (1808 or 1809, I think), his lordship, after 
 leaving the bench early, went and reviewed the, volunteers 1 
 Yes, the Judge of Assize doffed his wig, mounted a 
 charger, and reviewed a regiment; and went forward 
 next day on his Circuit. After the display on the field, 
 he entertained the officers and the military authorities of 
 the place at dinner. There probably never was so much 
 scarlet or so many epaulettes at a judge's assize banquet 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT-AUTUMN 1847. 325 
 
 before. It was a grand military day in Aberdeen, and 
 entirely extinguished the poor glory of the Court. 
 
 All this seems odd now. But the wonder will abate 
 when we recollect that the reviewing judge was an actual 
 and most active Lieutenant-Colonel, and that though the 
 judicious lamented this, the period permitted it. And 
 indeed the judges, as representing the sovereign, had, and 
 I fancy still have, a right to take the command of the whole 
 military within the Circuit town. This is not practised 
 now, but it was uniformly practised since I remember. 
 The judge was formally waited upon by the commanding 
 officer, or by some officer representing him, and asked for 
 orders, and to give the password for the day. I never 
 knew the judge give any orders, but he very generally 
 gave the word; and the daily military report was 
 frequently made to him by an officer lowering his 
 sword. 
 
 There is one change for the worse. Magistrates and 
 gentry are positively ordered by old royal proclamations, 
 I believe, to testify their respect for the law by attend- 
 ing the Circuit Courts. Long after this had become a 
 mere piece of antiquarianism, the gentry did attend the 
 Courts, from a sense of propriety partly ; but hardly one 
 of them does so, voluntarily, now. This is wrong, but it 
 is a mistake to think that it proceeds from the modern 
 rise of popular vulgarity, or disrespect of authority. On 
 the contrary, its chief cause is, that people respect the law 
 so much, and so habitually, that they don't think that it 
 needs any extra aid. The very decline of political interest 
 contributes greatly to the absence of the aristocracy. 
 But nothing contributes so much as the change of the law, 
 which took the nomination of the jury from the judge. 
 While this power lasted, the judge took care to secure the 
 presence of gentlemen and friends, who would grace the 
 
326 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 procession and the banquet. A good diner was sure to 
 be paid the compliment of being summoned. 
 
 After opening the Court with all attainable splendour, 
 the best modern practice is for the judges to go to and from 
 the court-house as quietly as possible. But the fashion, till 
 lately, was never to move but in procession, — always 
 fully tailed, and on foot, that the tail might be seen the 
 better. It is not very long since there was a foot proces- 
 sion to and from every meeting and rising of the Court ; 
 even in Glasgow, where, whatever sneers it produced, it 
 could produce no village awe. Yet twice every day did 
 we walk, horn-blown, about a mile, through that contemn- 
 ing mob \ ay, and with torches if it was at night. The 
 last Glasgow foot procession I remember being in was 
 about 1820. It was a wet day; and I have often 
 regretted having lost a caricature which John Lockhart, 
 a master in that art, drew of Lord Pitmilly, with his 
 umbrella over his wig, and his gown tucked up out of the 
 mud, to the exposure of his lordship's odd and well-known 
 legs. We have taken to carriages and cavalry at Glasgow 
 now. I hope to see the neighing steeds dispensed with 
 soon ; but as to this I am at present solitary. (I have since 
 found this picture.) 
 
 It carries me far back into my fresh-hood, to recollect 
 the time when I thought the Circuit dinner an imposing 
 affair. 
 
 CuMPSTON, Friday, 2ith September 1847. — But this was 
 during the revolutionary war, when there was some 
 aristocracy and red cloth at them. The frivolous smile at 
 the horns now ; but wdien they croaked forth God save the 
 king, a tune that no one could safely treat even with 
 jocular levity then, — they were listened to with proud 
 and decorous respect. A poor creature, whose case was 
 
so UTH CIR C UIT~A UTUMN 1 847 . 327 
 
 not capital, cut his throat in jail (at Ayr, I believe), as 
 soon as he heard the brazen sound which announced the 
 approach of Eskgrove. At which his lordship rubbed his 
 hands with delight, and explained, chuckling, how gratify- 
 ing a sign it was of the wholesome terrors of the C"cuit 
 Judge. The first Circuit dinner I was at (Perth), I 
 happened to say to a person beside me that a whole 
 Circuit must surely be tiresome. "This is my sixty- 
 third, sir" (or some such enormous number). I stared at 
 him as- a midge might at an elephant. It was Henry 
 Johnstone Wyllie, the clerk, who lived to go about, or 
 above, one hundred. He was a good man, and a stiff, 
 correct clerk, famous in his day. When he at last retired 
 he was complimented by a grand Circuit bar dinner. 
 
 At Edinburgh, the old judges had a practice, at which 
 even their barbaric age used to shake its head : they had 
 always wine and biscuits on the hendi when the business 
 was to be plainly protracted beyond the usual dinner hour. 
 The modern judges — those I mean who were made after 
 1800, — never gave in to this; but with those of the 
 preceding generation, some of whom lasted several years 
 after 1800, it was quite familiar. Black bottles of strong 
 port were set down beside them on the bench, with glasses, 
 carafes of water, tumblers, and biscuits ; and this without 
 the slightest shame or attempt at concealment. The 
 refreshment was generally allowed to stand untouched, and 
 as if despised, for a short while, during which their lord- 
 ships seemed to be intent only on their notes. But in a 
 little some water was poured into the tumbler, and sipped 
 quietly, as if merely to sustain nature. Then a few drops of 
 wine were ventured upon, but only with the water. Till 
 at last patience could refrain no longer, and a full bumper 
 of the pure black element was tossed over, after which the 
 thing went on regularly, and there was a comfortable 
 
328 C7R CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 munching and quaffing, to the great envy of the parched 
 throats in the gallery. The strong-headed ones stood it 
 tolerably well. Bacchus had never an easy victory over 
 Braxfield. But it told, plainly enough, upon the feeble or 
 the twaddling, such as Eskgrove and Craig. Not that the 
 ermine was absolutely intoxicated. But it was certainly 
 very muzzy. This, however, was so ordinary with these 
 sages, that it really made little apparent odds upon them. 
 Their noses got a little redder, and their speech somewhat 
 thicker, and they became drowsier. But these changes 
 were not very perceptible at a distance ; and they all 
 acquired the habit of sitting and looking judicial enough, 
 even when their bottles had reached the lowest ebb. 
 
 This open-court refection never prevailed, so far as I 
 ever saw, at Circuits. It took a different form there. The 
 temptation of the inn frequently produced a total stoppage 
 of business ; during which all concerned — judges, and 
 counsel, and clerks, and jurymen, and provosts — had a 
 jolly dinner ; after which they returned again to the trans- 
 portations and hangings. I have seen this done often. It 
 was a common remark that the step of the evening proces- 
 sion was far less true to the music than that of the morn- 
 ing. The excitement and indecorum once produced a 
 scene of violence at Jedburgh (after 1807) which it was 
 miraculous did not, in due time, place the judge at the bar. 
 
 Nothing was so much disliked in those days as the 
 appeals, which it was the fashion to treat as intrusions, 
 and almost to smother under impatience and disdain. Be- 
 sides other indecencies, they were generally heard after 
 dinner, and at the inn. The dining-room, still fragrant, 
 was cleared, or half-cleared, and, after tea, my lord re- 
 appeared wigless, gownless, regardless ; flustered, and with 
 an obvious impatience for supper. 
 
 Circuit balls, now totally given up, were then quite 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1847. 329 
 
 established, but only at certain towns. There was always 
 one at Dumfries and at Ayr, and frequently at Glasgow. 
 And very nice balls they used to be ; easy and merry. 
 The judge was always expected to attend, and generally 
 did so. 
 
 Aberdeen used to be distinguished by '• The Entertain- 
 ment,' which was an evening party given to the Court by 
 the magistrates. It was not exactly a supper, for it had 
 little of the true supper solidity. It was a refection, — as 
 slight, elegant, and intellectual as a municipal banquet 
 could be. It took place on any convenient Circuit night, 
 at nine or ten o'clock, in a handsome civic hall, and lasted 
 about two hours. There seemed to be from eighty to one 
 hundred persons present — the city's cream. The aliments 
 consisted of nothing but fruits, dried or fresh, all manner 
 of cakes and biscuits, and a bottle of claret between each 
 two persons. There being thus no need of changing plates, 
 or of sending for distant dishes, and various drinks, ser- 
 vants were superseded, and there were none in the room 
 unless when rung for. The Provost presided. But he 
 was above the vulgarity of toasts. This duty was devolved 
 on a city officer, who stood, in uniform, behind the Pro- 
 vost, with a list of the toasts, which he proclaimed on get- 
 ting a sign, in a loud, official voice. There were very few, 
 and very short, speeches, and scarcely any cheering. But 
 there was a competency of mirth, and some songs, and a 
 homely species of kind, and not very difficult, wit. On 
 the whole, it was the most civilised magisterial festival I 
 have ever seen. Why, or when, it ceased, I don't exactly 
 know. 
 
 Of the old picturesque Lords, none can hold up their 
 heads against Eskgrove and Hermand. The whole of 
 this volume would not contain one-half of the divert- 
 ing, and now incredible, sayings and doings, of these two 
 
330 CIR C UI r JO URNE \ ' 9. 
 
 judicial men, vviio shone in quite different spheres. No 
 outrageousness of originality could ever make Hermand 
 cease to be a warm-hearted gentleman of the olden time. 
 Eskgrove was a personified compound of avarice, indecency, 
 official insolence and personal cowardice, great law, and 
 practical imbecility. He cannot be thought of, in the 
 Circuit days I refer to, except in connection with Brougham, 
 who, during the four years he was at our bar, laid himself 
 out, and with triumphant success, to make fun out of this 
 creature, by torturing and exposing it. I can describe 
 neither at present, nor give any of the countless anecdotes 
 that signalised their peregrinations. It is difficult to say 
 whether spectators laughed most at the ludicrous and con- 
 temptible absurdities of the mean and testy judge, or at 
 the able and audacious extravagances of the counsel. 
 Paired, they were perfect. 
 
 CuMPSTON, Saturday, 2Dth September 1847. — There 
 being little criminal, and no civil business, the more 
 eminent counsel were rarely seen at Circuits. But every 
 Circuit town had its own great barrister, generally con- 
 nected with it personally. James Fergusson, afterwards a 
 consistorial judge and a principal Clerk of Session, one of 
 the best-natured and most absent of men, predominated at 
 Ayr. Dumfries boasted of Eobert Corbet, subsequently 
 Crown counsel in the matter of tithes, and keeper of 
 something in the General Register House ; also an excel- 
 lent and able, but vulgar and illiterate man. Aberdeen 
 rung with the empty eloquence of James Gordon of Craig, 
 the only Aberdonian I ever knew at the bar who had not 
 a particle of granite in his head or his discourse ; all 
 sputter, and froth, and declamation. Perth was the 
 
 dunghill of , the patron of blackguardism, yet who 
 
 never had a client equal to himself in that quality. 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1847. •'^•'^1 
 
 Wordiness was the peculiarity of all these men ; as it 
 ever must be of the local class, which must suit itself to 
 the taste of the local market, where zeal is the prized 
 virtue, and loud loquacity is the clearest mark of zeal. I 
 am not aware that there is any district barrister now, 
 except my friend Mr. Logan, who charms Stirling. 
 Increase of business has abridged speeches, and when a 
 case occurs that can pay for a speech, facility of travelling 
 secures a better tongue than the provincial one. 
 
 The last generation was not rich in curious Sheriffs. 
 Fraser of Farraline at Inverness, Gordon of Culvennan at 
 Kirkcudbright, and Edward M'Cormick at Ayr, were 
 perhaps the least common ; but even they are insignificant. 
 Walter Scott, to be sure, gave justice to Selkirkshire, and 
 always cheered the Circuit at Jedburgh. His talk and 
 mirth drove even the Abbey out of our heads. 
 
 Of all my old Circuit companions, there is none it is so 
 delightful to recollect as Jeffrey. I have been with him often, 
 at every Circuit town except Inveraray, and we generally 
 travelled together. Every court-house and every inn is 
 associated with him. Striking as his professional displays 
 used to be, they were always effaced by his personal worth 
 and his rich and playful conversation. Whether walking 
 through beautiful scenery, or shivering in a state of half- 
 nausea in a crazy Kinghorn passage-boat, or toasting him- 
 self over the kitchen fire of a bad inn, in the grey of a 
 spring morning, till the ostler could be roused, he never 
 failed to enliven the scene by his speculations and his dis- 
 cussions with anybody, however humble, who came in his 
 way. Would that he were on the Justiciary bench. But 
 it may not be. 
 
 Craigie House, Sunday Night, 26th Septemher 1847. — 
 The facts as to this Circuit are these : — 
 
332 CIR CUIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 My daughter Elizabeth and Joanna Eichardson are with 
 me. We left Edinburgh last Monday, and dined at 
 Dumfries, where we joined Moncreiff, who had taken 
 Jedburgh. We were in Court at Dumfries all Tuesday 
 the 21st and part of Wednesday the 2 2d; on which last 
 day we got to Cumpston in the evening, with Moncreiff. 
 He left it for Brougham Hall on Friday. We stayed there 
 till this morning, when we came here, by Carsphairn 
 and Dalmellington. 
 
 A most beautiful day ; worthy of such a drive. The 
 Glenkens part of it — from Cumpston to Carsphairn, — 
 about thirty miles, is really admirable. I grieve for 
 Dalmellington. It has the appearance, and the reputation 
 of being a singularly virtuous and happy village ; and I 
 am told is perhaps the last place in Ayrshire where, with 
 a good deal of old primitive manufacture, rural simplicity 
 and contentment still linger. But it is now to taste of 
 manufactures in an improved state. The devil has disclosed 
 his iron, and speculation has begun to work it. There 
 seemed to be about a dozen of pits sinking within half a mile 
 of the village, and before another year is out those now 
 solitary and peaceful hills will be blazing with furnaces, 
 and blighted by the presence and the vices of a new popu- 
 lation of black scoundrels. They were already lying snor- 
 ing, and, I presume, drunk, on many indignant knolls. 
 
 BoNALY, 30//i Se/ptemher 1847. — I was in Court at Ayr 
 all Monday and Tuesday, and till near one yesterday ; 
 after which we railed to Edinburgh, and were here in the 
 evening. I lived entirely at Craigie, with my old friend 
 James Campbell, who was my companion on many a Circuit 
 in the days of yore. Escape into country air, or into any 
 air but that of a steamy, noisy, fetid, obscene public-house, 
 was so agreeable, that it revived my scheme of having the 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1847. f?33 
 
 abominable Circuit dinner abolished, and the judges let 
 alone in their private lodgings. 
 
 The only curious case on this Circuit was that of a 
 worthy husband at Jedburgh, who wanted to get his 
 sjDOUse killed ; but instead of resorting to commonplace 
 violence by himself, tried to make the law do it. For this 
 purpose he fell upon the device of making it appear that 
 she had poisoned him ; for which she was committed for 
 trial, and was very nearly being tried. But suspicion 
 being excited, it was discovered that his whole statements 
 on precognition were false, and all his dexterous imitations 
 of being poisoned utter fabrications. The result was that 
 he was brought to trial himself for fraud, and was trans- 
 ported for seven years. 
 
NORTH CIECUIT. 
 
 Spring 1848. 
 
 Stonehaven, Sunday Night, 9th April 1848. — I left 
 Edinburgh yesterday morning with my son George and 
 my daughter Elizabeth, who has now become a part of the 
 Circuit, 
 
 Our route and conveyance were neM^ I sent the carriage 
 across to Burntisland on the evening of Friday the 7th : 
 and we got on the railway yesterday at 8.17; were at 
 Granton in a few minutes ; crossed in less than half an 
 hour ; re-railed to Cupar, where we found the carriage and 
 horses waiting for us ; drove to the Dundee ferry ; crossed ; 
 railwayed again from Dundee to Montrose ; posted here, 
 where we arrived at six ; doing in ten hours what it had 
 taken Moncreiff, who preferred the old way of horses and 
 Perth, two days to achieve. 
 
 We did this on Saturday, because, as yet, there is no 
 railway travelling on Sunday; and therefore we were 
 obliged to pass this whole day here, with Moncreiff and 
 his daughter. 
 
 I passed two hours or so loitering round the point oppo- 
 site the harbour, and along the shore, to very near Dun- 
 nottar ; a way I never took before. It is a most glorious 
 walk, with a good foot-worn path along the edge of the 
 beach all along. Most picturesque rocks, — black, water- 
 carved into strange forms, interspersed by delicious little 
 bays, as to which it is impossible to avoid always doubting 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1848. 835 
 
 whether the velvet of the soft bank turf, or the j^ure stones 
 glittering before and under the bright fresh ocean, be the 
 most beautiful. And what an ocean, as seen to-day ! 
 Blue-blue, calm, shipless, boundless, gazed over in silence 
 by the ruin. I have seldom passed two hours of more 
 useful solitude. 
 
 Inverness, Sunday Evening, IGth April 1848. — We 
 meant to have begun business at Aberdeen on Monday the 
 10th. But after the Circuit had been fixed for that day, 
 it was discovered that it was their Sacramental Monday ; 
 and we were obliged to give up the entering procession, 
 and to adjourn till two. But we went there to breakfast. 
 
 We were in Court that day till seven ; all Tuesday, all 
 Wednesday, and part of Thursday. There was nothing 
 curious in the business. But I took a note on the spot of 
 a thing that struck me as very curious in the Circuit 
 prayer. It shows the extent to which some people's faith 
 in the reformation of criminals goes. The reverend gen- 
 tleman, after praying for the judges and the jurors, and 
 the witnesses, and the Advocate-Depute, and the counsel — 
 on each of whom he bestowed a separate aspiration — came 
 to the prisoners. And as to them, he expressed his 
 hope and Ms belief that they would all come to consider 
 their detection, and their conviction, and their punishment, 
 and " their very crimes,'' as so many kindnesses of Provi- 
 dence to lead them into the right way ; and that if they 
 did so, they might be assured that " at last they would 
 shine as the brightest gems in the Eedeemer's crown." 
 These were his very words. 
 
 Moncreiff returned southwards, and I came on here, 
 after Aberdeen. We got to Elgin on the evening of 
 Thursday the 1 3th, and stayed there (bad inn) that night. 
 Next morning we breakfasted at Knockomie and remained 
 
336 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 there till six in the evening. I again visited what, to me, 
 was once the paradise of Kelugas. My friend Sir Thomas 
 Lauder, under whose domestic sunshine I used to know it, 
 is dying, and I felt it a very sad visit. Believing his 
 recovery impossible, I hope never to see it again. The 
 worthy lady of Knockomie made her hospitality include 
 both an excellent breakfast and an excellent dinner. But 
 we at last prevailed upon ourselves to take to the road, 
 and we got here about nine in the face of a magnificent 
 sunset. 
 
 Our business was over yesterday, in one short day \ 
 and then came the dinner. 
 
 This morning, as on the morning of yesterday, I walked 
 up to the island, by the left bank of the river. Then 
 went in gowned procession, and heard a very bad, noisy 
 sermon. After which I went to the canal basin, along 
 this side of the canal, till it nearly touches Craigphadrick, 
 up to the top of that hill of Patrick ; down, and across 
 fields to the river-side opposite the island ; and so home. 
 And now, after a quiet repast, with Edward Maitland, 
 Francis Russell, and Burnet, and a night view of the river 
 from the bridge, I am " bedward ruminating." 
 
 Every place I revisit is improving. The increase of 
 religious and educational buildings is very striking. 
 Huntly, Keith, Fochabers, and Forres, are each dignified 
 by new edifices in a style certainly not below the import- 
 ance of the places ; and the people here, having got some 
 funds, are beginning to discover that the capital of the 
 north requires a college. The vanity of Bell, who has 
 ordered all his charity schools to be called Madras Col- 
 leges — one of which is at Inverness — has vulgarised this 
 once respectable title all over the country. The new jail, 
 now erecting, will be a very great improvement in the 
 composition of this already beautiful place. But it is 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT—SPRING 1848. 337 
 
 melancholy to see a new house building even in little old 
 Forres. Jails and schools, and such things, necessary, like 
 railways and post offices, for modern accommodation, must 
 be submitted to ; but a new private dwelling-house intro- 
 duced into Forres ! with its insolent front to the street, 
 its ostentatious windows, its brass knocker, and a plate 
 announcing the scoundrel's name ! 
 
 AviEMORE, Tuesday Morning, ISfh April 1848. — We left 
 Inverness yesterday about ten, and were here by three. 
 A good, clear day, though certainly not sultry. I walked 
 till six, trying to find the way to the house of Rothie- 
 murchus which, often as I have been here, I had never 
 gone to ; and after going nearly two miles wrong, I suc- 
 ceeded in getting within hail of it, but there was no boat 
 to take me across. In the evening we went to see a little 
 loch within less than a mile of the inn, which I never 
 even heard of till now, when two gentlemen at Inverness 
 were loud in its praise. It is well set, in a hollow — 
 amidst birches — at the base of a respectable rock. But 
 the water is too shallow and too small ; a mere saucerful. 
 The mountains were in great splendour, with their per- 
 petual darkness, relieved by much bright snow, and all 
 their forms, and valleys, and gullies, and corries, palpably 
 near us. And, before bedding, their silent regions were 
 looked upon by an excellent moon. But our Scotch moon 
 is a cold creature. 
 
 And there they are again this morning ; in a still finer 
 day. ye Cairngorms, how have ye never produced a 
 poet of your own ? Had I been born among ye, no doubt 
 every one of your summits and your valleys would have 
 been sung. I cannot look upon you, and doubt that your 
 bard is rearing. 
 
338 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 Bridge of Tilt, Tuesday Night, ISth April 1848. — 
 Left Aviemore at nine and were here by five. The day 
 cold but bright, and the long, silent range in an excellent 
 state. There is no better drive for a contemplative man. 
 We revisited the Bruar Falls ; the ducal monster being in 
 London, George and I dared to walk to his castle. Out- 
 side — which is all that we saw — it is all in a wretched 
 condition, — mean, comfortless, squalid. 
 
 When I left home, I thought of devoting these pages to 
 anecdotes connected with famous trials, chiefly those in 
 which I have been professionally engaged. But I find 
 that it would not do, without far more detail than any- 
 body would care to follow. Let me therefore just tell 
 three stories, which are all simple and curious. 
 
 In July 1800 a person of the name of Elliot was con- 
 victed of a capital offence — either horse-stealing or forgery 
 — and was doomed to die. Owing to some legal doubt he 
 was pardoned, only a day or two before he was to have 
 suffered ; but another man, who had been condemned to 
 be executed on the same day, was not so fortunate. Lord 
 Medwyn (who is my informer) was caught, by accident, 
 on the Lawnmarket of Edinburgh, and could not escape 
 from the crowd which he found assembling to witness the 
 execution of the law's remaining victim, but he got into a 
 remote spot at the upper end of the street. A man came 
 there hurriedly, and in intense agitation, and stood out 
 most part of the scene. His eyes were strained towards 
 the scaffold, as if they would burst, his hands clenched in 
 agony, his chest heaving, the very picture of horror. It 
 was Elliot. Medwyn had seen him in court, and knew 
 him. Instead of flying, he felt it irresistible to witness the 
 proceeding in which he himself had so nearly been an 
 actor ; and probably suffered far more in seeing the 
 position of his associate, and in sympathising with himself, 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1848. 339 
 
 than he would have done if he had been the spectacle, and 
 not the spectator. It was a strange feeling that forced 
 him there, yet not an incomprehensible one. 
 
 I had a client called David Haggart, who was hanged 
 at Edinburgh for murdering his jailor in Dumfries. He 
 was young, good looking, gay, and amiable to the eye; 
 but there never was a riper scoundrel, a most perfect and 
 inveterate miscreant in all the darker walks of crime. 
 Nevertheless, his youth (about twenty-five), and apparent 
 gentleness, joined to an open confession of sins, procured 
 him considerable commiseration, particularly among the 
 pious and the female. He employed the last days of his 
 existence in dictating memoirs of his own life to his agent, 
 with a view to publication. The book was published, and 
 my copy contains a drawing of himself in the condemned 
 cell, by his own hand, with a set of verses, his own com- 
 position, which he desired to be given to me in token of 
 his gratitude for my exertions at his trial. Well, the con- 
 fessions, and the whole book, were a tissue of absolute lies, 
 — not of mistakes, or of exaggerations, or of fancies, but of 
 sheer and intended lies. And they all had one object, 
 to make him appear a greater villain than he really was. 
 Having taken to the profession of crime, he wished to be 
 at the head of it. He wanted to die a great man. He 
 therefore made himself commit crimes of all sorts ; none 
 of which, as was ascertained by inquiry, were ever com- 
 mitted at all. His guilt in these deathbed inventions was 
 established by as good evidence as his guilt in the act for 
 which he suffered was. A strange pride. Yet not with- 
 out precedent ; and in nobler walks of criminal ambition. 
 . Mrs. Mackinnon was convicted of murder on the 13th 
 of March 1823. Jeifrey and I were her counsel. Her 
 family had been respectable. It was sworn, by a person 
 who had served with him, that her deceased father was a 
 
340 CIR CUITJO URNE VS. 
 
 captain in the army. But by misfortune after misfortune, 
 or more probably by successive acts of misconduct, she 
 was at last, when not much, if at all, above thirty, reduced 
 to the condition of being the mistress of a disorderly house 
 in Edinburgh. But still she was not all bad ; for a strong 
 and lofty generosity, by which she had been distinguished 
 before she fell, neither the corruptions, nor the habits of 
 her subsequent life could extinguish. She had stabbed a 
 man with a knife, in a brawl in her house, and it was for 
 taking his life that her own was forfeited. If some cir- 
 cumstances which were established in a precognition, taken 
 by the orders of Sir Robert Peel, then Home Secretary, 
 after her conviction, had transpired on the trial, it is more 
 than probable that Jeffrey, whose beautiful speech, on the 
 bad elements in his hands, is remembered to this hour, 
 would have prevailed on the jury to restrict their convic- 
 tion to culpable homicide. But, in law, it was a murder, 
 and Peel, though moved, was advised that she could not 
 be spared. 
 
 So she died publicly, but gracefully and bravely ; and 
 her last moment was marked by a proceeding so singular, 
 that it is on its account that I mention her case. She 
 had an early attachment to an English Jew, who looked 
 like a gentleman, on the outside at least ; and this passion 
 had never been extinguished. She asked him to come and 
 see her before her fatal day. He did so ; and on parting, 
 finally, on her last evening, she cut an orange into two, 
 and giving him one half, and keeping the other herself, 
 directed him to go to some window opposite the scaffold, 
 at which she could see him, and to apply his half to his 
 lips when she applied her half to hers. All this was done ; 
 she saw her only earthly friend, and making the sign, 
 died, cheered by this affection. 
 
 Here the anecdote ought to have ended ; and if it 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1848. 341 
 
 had been an invention, it would have ended here. But 
 see how nature's wonders exceed those of art. She had 
 left everything she had, amounting to four or five thousand 
 pounds, to her friend. He took the legacy, hut refused to 
 pay the costs of her defence, which her agent only screwed 
 out of him by an action. 
 
 Perth, Wednesday Night, Idth April 1848. — We came 
 here to-day, amidst ceaseless and heavy rain. 
 
 Perth, Sunday Night, '23d Ajml 1848. — Getting on 
 slowly, and dull, commonplace work. The audience was 
 relieved yesterday by a murder. But it was a poor one. 
 An infant suffocated in its clothes by its natural father. 
 He was condemned, but won't be hanged.^ 
 
 We went to church to-day in state. A grand oration, 
 from the same mouthy declaimer we had on the 27th of 
 April 1845. His fancy goods are of a bad pattern, and 
 want body. 
 
 After church Whigham and I had a beautiful walk, 
 over Kinnoul Hill, doAvn to Kinfauns, and home by the 
 road; all glorious. There are few finer scenes in this 
 country. Were I a Perth residenter, my morning and 
 evening meditations should be inspired by the quiet beauty 
 of the North Inch ; my forenoon exercise ennobled by the 
 rich magnificence of the prospects from the hill of Kinnoul. 
 
 BoNALY, Thursday, '21th April 1848. — We only got quit 
 of Perth yesterday about two. 
 
 George had left us on Saturday. The first one Avho 
 ever ran ofi" from one of my Circuits before it was finished. 
 He has the misfortune to be an Episcopalian, and talked 
 of being home on Easter Sunday. But he is also married, 
 and his young wife was not with him. 
 
 ^ But he has been, though. 21st May 1848. 
 
342 CIR C Urr JO URNE YS. 
 
 My books were the last numbers of the Edinlmrgh and 
 Quarterly Reviews. Both dullish. I then took to Grantky 
 Manor, a novel, which I could not get on with. And then, 
 for the fiftieth time, T discovered new beauties in the Fair 
 Maid of Perth. 
 
 Mr. Edward Maitland shed his first odours, as public 
 accuser, over this Circuit. Hard and grim outside ; but 
 inwardly, soft enough; calm, firm, sensible, pious, and 
 honest. He had a little friend called Francis Russell, 
 advocate, with him, — a self-thinking fellow, as to whom I 
 would not be surprised if he were to become some one. 
 
WEST CIECUIT. 
 
 Autumn 1848. 
 
 CoMRiE House, Sunday, before dinner, 3d SeiHemher 
 1848. — My route this Circuit will be nearly the very same 
 as it was in this month 1845 ; so I shall literally just 
 keep the log. 
 
 'Thursday, olsl August 1848. — Left Edinburgh at seven 
 A.i\i., by the Stirling train, with my son George, his wife, 
 my daughter Johanna, and Marion Thomson of London. 
 Reached Stirling (the carriage with us) at nine. Break- 
 fasted ; saw the castle and everything ; departed at half 
 past eleven ; passed one hour and a half with Sir David 
 Dundas at Ochtertyre ; got to the Trossachs at five ; 
 loitered by the lochside till six ; returned, dined, snored. 
 The whole day bright, calm, and warm. 
 
 Friday, 1st September 1848. — Went to Loch at eight 
 A.M. ; boated ; returned at ten ; breakfasted ; got to Cal- 
 lander at twelve ; went to the Brig of Bracklin ; set off at 
 2.30 ; reached this via Loch Lubnaig and Lochearn at 
 6.30 ; a party to dinner; a sort of a dance in the evening. 
 Day bad at Callander ; otherwise excusable. 
 
 Saturday, 2d September 1848. — Drove and walked about 
 all day ; lunched at Dimira ; dined here with two Strowan 
 Stirling's and Dr. Malcolm. Day good. 
 
344 CIK C UI T JO URNE YS. 
 
 S'.i'-day, 3^ Septemher 1848. — Went to Comrie Estab- 
 lished Church ; walked to Lawers ; impatient for dinner. 
 Got it. To bed. 
 
 Monday, Uli September 1848, 9.30 p.m. — Left Comrie to- 
 day at eight ; and got here (King's House) at six. Such 
 a track ! and such a day ! A day to be remembered almost 
 in the grave. 
 
 Tuesday Night, 5th September 1848. — Left King's House 
 to-day at eleven, and was here, at BallachuHsh, at three ; 
 a beautiful day till about five, when the rain began. We 
 met John Stuart, M.P. and chancery barrister, here, and 
 arranged to sail up to his retreat at the head of Loch 
 Leven with him to-morrow. Meanwhile we all dined at 
 his brother's, the Laird of BallachuHsh. 
 
 Wednesday Night, 6th September 1848. — A day of unceas- 
 ing torrents of rain, and of furious wind. No Loch Leven 
 possible. We have scarcely got our noses out. The 
 glories of this place all veiled in black fog. 
 
 Thursday Night, 7th September 1848. — Ditto nearly. I 
 never saw rain before. However, in desperation I went, 
 with Charlotte and Marion, seven miles up Glencoe, to see 
 and hear the torrents roaring down the sides of the hills. 
 It was grand, but not so much as I expected. 
 
 No two worse days could be contrived for this place. 
 
 Saturday, 9th September 1848, Noon, Oban. — Yesterday 
 morning promised so well, that Marion and I went, before 
 breakfast, in a boat, that she might make a sketch of the 
 Episcopal chapel, — the grandest and the most beautifully 
 placed chapel in Britain. While she was so occupied on 
 an island, I loitered about, and saw many glorious gleams 
 of glorious scenes. 
 
W£S T CIR C UIT—A UTUMN 1848. 345 
 
 We left Ballachulish yesterday at eleven, and got to 
 Oban at half-past six. A torrent of rain, and thick fog, 
 with high wind, the whole way. We just saw enough to 
 show us what we were losing. A drive of singular magni- 
 ficence. This distance — which I record because I got such 
 opposite accounts of it — is twenty-six miles, exclusive of 
 the two ferries, of which Shean is above a mile across, and 
 Connel about a quarter of a mile. The north side of Shean 
 is sixteen miles from Ballachulish, the south side ten from 
 Oban. We had horses waiting us at the south side of 
 Shean from Oban. 
 
 Our carriage was heavy, and the pair of horses from 
 Ballachulish so light (or so sensible), that they stood stock 
 still till we got out at every hill ; so that from our walks, 
 and the two ferries, we were wet the whole day. And, 
 like an idiot, I let us be put into the mme, open boat with the 
 carnage at Shean, though the sea was as rough as a violent 
 head wind could make it in a space one and a quarter mile 
 wide,- and we had only two oars, each with two rowers. It 
 took them above an hour to get us, inch by inch, across ; the 
 carriage, heavily laden, swung; the nine Celts who had 
 cliarge of us jabbered and roared, all gesticulating opposite 
 directions ; and in spite of their assurances that there was 
 no danger, yet we were all alarmed, and I know one 
 who was in a genuine fright. I had my cloak unbut- 
 toned, a plank which was at my feet secured, and my 
 mind made up as to the point I was to try for. My chief 
 fear was for Johanna, who chose to remain in the carriage. 
 For our real danger lay in its swinging over, in which case 
 she was gone. The boat would have been upset ; but we, 
 who were free, had some chances from spars and the keel, 
 but she would, to a certainty, have been drowned in a 
 box. Mrs. George was in dreadful agitation. Marion 
 resolutely composed, though in great alarm. George sen- 
 
346 CIR CUirjO URNE YS. 
 
 sible and quiet, and, like myself, had his thoughts on the 
 keel, and his eye on the best spot to make for, should the 
 keel fail. It was a very dangerous, and a culpably foolish, 
 proceeding. We should have waited for a small boat for 
 ourselves, though we had waited a year. They are dis- 
 graceful ferries, having too few boats, and none of them 
 good ; no landing-places ; no planks, or gangways, or 
 cranes ; no men, excepting such as can be withdrawn for 
 the occasion from their proper land occupations ; no 
 master ; no system, or skill, or power either of speaking or 
 of hearing intelligently. Passengers, cattle, and carriages 
 are just lifted and thrown into clumsy, crazy boats, and 
 jerked by bad rowers, with unsafe oars, amidst a disor- 
 derly tumult of loud, discordant, half-naked, and very 
 hairy Celts, who, however, expecting whisky, are at least 
 civil, hearty, and strong. Bad though all this be, it is 
 perhaps as good as the smallness of the traffic and the 
 insolvency of the lairds admit of. 
 
 To-day the weather is as bad as ever. How it roars 
 and pours ! I begin to consider the spectacular part of the 
 Circuit as over. 
 
 Nevertheless, my four companions set sail, in the 
 steamer Dolfhin, this morning at seven, for lona and 
 Staffa. Poor wretches ! I don't believe they will land at 
 either. 
 
 Sunday Night, lOth Sepiemher 1848, Taynuilt. — But 
 they landed at both, and describe even the sail, the gleam- 
 broken clouds, and the dun hills of Mull as preferable to 
 the quiet brilliancy of a fine day. Right to make the 
 most of things. 
 
 This day has been beautiful. At eleven A.M. we all 
 went to the Episcopal room in Oban, and heard an English 
 stranger read prayers, very ill ; and a young Oxford tutor 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1848. 347 
 
 who has been there for two months with pupils, preach 
 very gently and elegantly, and quite uselessly. There 
 were above seventy persons present, all strangers, as the 
 landlord of the hotel told me, except about twenty or 
 twenty-five. 
 
 A Free Church has been erected in Oban since I last 
 saw it. It is beautifully placed, and better in its structure 
 than most of them. They are also beginning to make a 
 few villas. No sea place has better or more varied sites 
 than Oban, insomuch that under the wealth of England 
 it would be a beautiful marine village. But with the 
 poverty of Scotland, and the untidy habits of the people, 
 the positions and the prospects are lost. At Ballachulish, 
 the paradise of Scotland, the inn is exquisitely placed, 
 within a few feet of the water's edge ; but the paradise is 
 only to be seen over the dunghill, which is spread out 
 between the windows and the clearest water in nature. 
 
 To-day we left Oban about three ; went in a boat to 
 Dunstaffnage, and got here about half-past six. A good 
 bad inn. To-morrow for Loch Etive. 
 
 Monday Night, 11th September 1848, Dalmally. — A very 
 successful expedition up Loch Etive. The day excellent, 
 a capital boat, and four good and sensible rowers, one of 
 whom renewed his acquaintance with me, having been in 
 the same capacity in 1845. It is a magnificent piece of 
 solitude, not improved since 1845 by the opening of 
 two granite quarries, and with more pasture that I formerly 
 supposed. 
 
 We left Taynuilt about four, and came here. A glorious 
 stage. 
 
 Tuesday Night, 12th Sept emJ>er 1848, Inveraray. — Canie 
 here this forenoon. A da}- worthy of Loch Awe. 
 
348 CIKCUI T jo URNE \ 'S. 
 
 JVedmsday Night, Inveraray, lUh September 1848.— 
 Moncreiff joined us here yesterday. In Court till six p.m.. 
 and then the degrading dinner, which some of my brethren 
 think essential for the preservation of the constitution. 
 
 Tarbet, Thursday Night, \ith Septemher 1848. — Came 
 here to-day at four P.M. A beautiful day. Stopped and 
 saw reformed Ardkinglas. A delightful Highland spot. 
 The flower-garden is excellent ; and the piece of water 
 saved from the usual oflfensiveness of artificial ponds by 
 the neatness with which it and its adjuncts are kept. 
 Noble ash-trees, and silver firs ; but I doubt if there be 
 two of the latter that are not suffering from the competi- 
 tion of paltry enemies. The axe should spare nothing that 
 touches, or even shades, a leaf of these magnificent pines. 
 
 Glasgow, Friday Night, 15th September 1848. — Left 
 Tarbet to-day after breakfast ; loitered, by land and by 
 water, for some hours, at Luss, and were here about seven 
 P.M. As perfect a day for Loch Lomond as there can be 
 without bright sunshine. 
 
 BoNALY, Saturday Night, I Uh September 1848. — After 
 inspecting the beautiful and well restored Cathedral of 
 Glasgow, and the striking but spoiled burial-ground, 
 affectedly styled the Necropolis, and the venerable but 
 doomed college, we came here to-day to dinner. 
 
 I return to the Glasgow part of the business on Monday 
 night. Too much time was allowed between Inveraray and 
 Glasgow, and I have resorted to this home pause from 
 economical necessity. 
 
 My book during the last fortnight has been Ivanhoe 
 once more. But I grieve to say that I read it with 
 diminished admiration. Probably nobody else could have 
 
WES T CIR C UIT—A UTUMN 1 848. 849 
 
 written that work ; but his genius seems never to find 
 profusion of matter except in Scotland. See how the 
 figures rush up into living life in any of his good Scotch 
 novels. Take JVaverhij with MacTvor, Flora, jVIacwheeble, 
 Davie Gellatley, Bradwardine, Evan Dhu Maccombich, 
 etc. Or Gmj Mannering with the Dominie, Meg Merrilees, 
 Dandy Dinmont, the old Laird, Dirk Hatteraick, etc. Or 
 Pvoh Roy with Eob, Helen MacGregor, the Bailie, Andrew 
 Fairservice, the Dougal Cratur, etc. And so we may go 
 on with nearl}'- the whole works, each teeming with 
 original life, exhibited in fresh, natural scenes. Rebecca 
 is almost the solitary figure in Ivanhoe ; the passage at 
 arms, and the glorious night between Richard and the 
 Clerk of Copmanhurst, almost its two great scenes. The 
 revival of Athelstane from the supposed dead, though such 
 an incident may have occurred, is an absurdity and a 
 trick, and unworthy of the work and of its author. There 
 are other scenes, such as the storming of Torquilstone Castle, 
 and the two interviews of the Templar and Rebecca — in 
 the one of which he tries to make her become his mistress, 
 and in the other to escape with him as his wife — that are 
 admirable, but they are of inferior importance. On the 
 whole, Ivanhoe is a great prose epic, but it wants the 
 varied, natural originality which signalises the works 
 drawn from Scotch life and scenery. 
 
 BoNALY, 27th September 1848. — On the night of Monday 
 the 18th my daughter Elizabeth and I returned to 
 Glasgow, where we remained till Saturday the 23d, when 
 we came here to dinner. And on the morning of Monday 
 the 25th I went back to Glasgow, but got finally free on 
 the evening of Tuesday the 26th. 
 
 There were only about 71 cases, and as we cleared ofif 
 36 in the two first days, w^e deluded ourselves by the hope 
 
350 
 
 CIR C UIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 of a speedy liberation. But the pleas of guilty always 
 come first. These were succeeded by some tough trials, in- 
 cluding one bad murder. The bad nature of the cases 
 may be judged of from the results. There were only 
 71 cases, involving 100 prisoners, of whom about eight 
 or ten prisoners, owing to the illness of witnesses, etc., 
 were not disposed of, and one had the solitary good luck 
 to be acquitted, leaving about eighty individuals to be 
 dealt with. Now of these — 
 
 1 was imprisoned ... 6 months. 
 
 2 
 
 " JJ 5J 
 
 10 „ „ 
 
 4 
 
 31 were transported 
 20 
 
 9 
 
 9 „ 
 12 „ 
 15 „ 
 18 „ 
 
 7 years. 
 10 „ 
 14 „ 
 
 Death. 
 
 80 
 The murderer was John M'Luskie, a miner or collier, 
 and Irish by nativity, who relieved the tedium of a quiet 
 Sunday by stabbing James Macbride, his next door neigh- 
 bour, four times, once mortally, with such a total absence 
 of all provocation, defence, or mitigation, that except upon 
 the principle of the brutal disregard of other peoples' 
 lives which sometimes operates on stupid savages, the 
 proceeding was altogether unintelligible. The jury 
 recommended him to mercy on the ground that there 
 had been no 'previous malice, — a ground equally applicable 
 wherever a man murders a stranger, and triumphantly 
 where he murders a friend. Nevertheless this nonsense 
 of the want of previous malice saved the beast's life. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT. 
 
 Autumn 1849. 
 
 Bridge of Tilt, Monday Night, 10th Seplemher 1849. — 
 On the old round, with my daughter Johanna and my 
 niece Mary Fullerton. Her sister Elphy was to have been 
 with us, but being smitten with a hurlythrumbo, her 
 doctor, at the last moment, forbade her, to my great 
 sorrow. 
 
 AYe left Edinburgh by the Northern Eailway at ten A.M., 
 and in spite of the ferry, got to Perth at about a quarter 
 before one. We then made the agreeable change to post- 
 ing, and got here about half-past six. 
 
 A dull day ; and heavy rain from Dunkeld to this, 
 with great fog. As bad a day for the scene as possible. 
 
 I again went into the grounds of Dunkeld ; and think 
 it a duty to record another execration against the almost 
 swindling extortion and offensive insensibility of its noble 
 and most contemptible owner. I cannot understand how 
 a duke can degrade himself by such pecuniary exaction, 
 and nauseate the lieges by keeping the cathedral in so 
 loathsome a state. 
 
 I had at different times planned different expeditions 
 for this Circuit. They have all failed, chiefly from the 
 impossibility of trusting this summer for two days together 
 of good weather. But I may record them, for future 
 guidance. 
 
 One was. to take the mail from Inverness to AYick ; the 
 
352 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 steamer from Wick to Kirkwall, a six-hours' sail ; to see 
 Orkney, and to return by steam to Wick. The steamer 
 at present leaves Wick on Saturday forenoon, and returns 
 there on Tuesday forenoon ; and two days are quite 
 enough for Orkney. So that one week would suffice for 
 this Circuit parenthesis. 
 
 Another was to stop in the hackneyed Highland road at 
 Dalwhinnie, and to go from Dalwhinnie by Loch Laggan 
 to Fort William, a distance of about fifty miles; and 
 from Fort William by the steamer, through the lochs and 
 the Caledonian Canal, to Inverness. The road from Dal- 
 whinnie to Fort William I understand to be excellent ; 
 and the country, especially if Loch Treig be turned aside 
 for, beautiful. The inns are not to be depended upon in 
 this season, and still less the horses. But the Dalwhinnie 
 horses, by sending a pair on, do the job easily. Besides 
 the weather, I was deterred from this by the chance of 
 finding the steamer crowded by jurymen, witnesses, tour- 
 ists, and other injudicial accompaniments. 
 
 A iliirii was to give eight days to an exploration of 
 Sutherland. I was much bent on this, and would have 
 done it had the weather not frowned. I had got a good 
 route from Mr. St. John, the author of the excellent works 
 on Highland sports. And as few people know how to see 
 this out of the way county, I shall preserve his stages 
 here. The whole journey was to have been performed by 
 the same pair of horses, taken from Inverness. 
 
 First day. — From Inverness to the Bridge of Alness, 
 twenty-one miles ; from this to Ardguy (or Ardgye) 
 fifteen miles. 
 
 Second day. — From Ardguy, by Bonar, along the shore 
 of the firth, to Invershin, five miles ; from this Altnagach 
 Inn, where the horses rest ; then to Inchnadamph. 
 
 Third day. — Inchnadamph to Loch Inver, twelve miles, 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1849. 353 
 
 and back to Inchnadamph, because no road further. But 
 all this may be omitted without deranging the route. 
 
 Fourth day. — From Inchnadamph to Scourie, by the 
 base of Quinigan, '^ the grandest of hills." The picturesque 
 ferry of Kylesku to be crossed. 
 
 Fifth day. — From Scourie to Durness. 
 
 Sixth day. — From Durness by the head of Loch Eriboll 
 and Loch Hope, through Strathmore, to Altnahara. 
 
 Seventh day. — To Lairg, eighteen miles ; and by the 
 head of Loch Shin to Ardguy. Or from Lairg to Golspie, 
 eighteen miles, i.e. to Dunrobin, which is twenty miles 
 from Tain. 
 
 If the third day's work be given up, a day is left for 
 going from Scourie to Tongue, and to Ben Loyal. 
 
 The whole road is excellent ; and all the inns, particu- 
 larly at the proposed sleeping-places, are most comfortable. 
 I did not always get the miles, but no day's journey is at 
 all excessive, and, in general, they are rather moderate. 
 
 This is the thing to do. Unless one were to go both to 
 Orkney and to Shetland, the rock scenery of which I believe 
 is well worth any trouble or any suffering, except being- 
 torn inside out by the tossing of one hundred miles of 
 restless water. 
 
 AviEMORE, Tuesday Night, I Ith September 1849. — A dull, 
 but fair day. 
 
 I shall probably never see this noble tract again. They 
 talk of continuing the Aberdeen railway to Inverness. 
 This will destroy the posting and the inns on what has 
 hitherto been called the Highland road, and will compel 
 us to be conveyed like parcels— speed alone considered, 
 and seeing excluded. 
 
 Cairngorm was mistified. 
 
 The Highland coach going south was overset within a 
 
 z 
 
3o4 CIR C UIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 mile of this this forenoon. Nobody killed, but several 
 hurt. There being no doctors here, they were all obliged to 
 go on. One English gentleman, whom we saw sitting in 
 a carriage, had a very uncomfortable-looking cheek. 
 
 Inverness, Wednesday Night, 12 th Septemher 1849. — 
 Here to-day, through a ceaseless torrent, and a world of 
 wet grey fog. What a scrape it would have been to have 
 gone, as I was nearly doing, from Dalwhinnie to Fort 
 AVilliam, and to have either received all the splash of this 
 day on the deck of a steamer, or to have escaped it by the 
 far worse horrors of a small cabin crowded by wet men 
 stinking of tobacco. 
 
 Knockomie, Saturday Morning, 15th September 1849. — 
 The Inverness criminal business was finished on Thursday 
 night. 
 
 But I must not forget the mail-coach. It was the one 
 from Edinburgh to Inverness, by the Highland road. It 
 was due at Inverness about nine or ten on Wednesday 
 night, but was upset on the north side of Moy into a 
 swollen stream, and the whole insides were very nearly 
 drowned. They had, after being saved, to shiver, in their 
 drenched garments, and without fire, though in a sort of mud 
 toll-house, for six or seven hours, after which they were 
 got on. Mr. Aitken, the Clerk of Court, and two counsel, 
 were three of the drooked. The clerk's papers all went 
 down the stream, but were recovered, though well steeped. 
 
 The only thing memorable in our business was a case of 
 rioting, deforcement, etc., charged against four poor respect- 
 able men, who had been active in resisting a Highland 
 clearing in North Uist. The popular feeling is so strong 
 against these (as I think necessary, but) odious operations, 
 that I was afraid of an acquittal, which would have been 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1849. 355 
 
 unjust and mischievous. On the other hand even the law has 
 no sympathy with the exercise of legal rights in a cruel 
 way. The jury solved the difficulty by first convicting, 
 by a majority, and then giving this written, and therefore 
 well-considered, recommendation, " The jury unanimously 
 recommend the pannels to the utmost leniency and mercy 
 uf the Court, in consideration of the cruel, though it 
 may be legal, proceedings adopted in ejecting the whole 
 people of Solas from their houses and crops, without the 
 prospect of shelter or a footing in their fatherland, or 
 even the means of expatriating them to a foreign one," 
 a statement that will ring all over the country. We 
 shall not soon cease to hear of this calm and judicial 
 censure of incredible but proved facts. For it was estab- 
 lished (1) that warrants of ejectment, that is, of dismantling 
 hovels, had been issued against about sixty tenants, being 
 nearly the whole tenantry in the district of Solas, com- 
 prehending probably three hundred persons, warrants 
 which the agents of Lord Macdonald had certainly a right 
 to demand, and the Sheriff was bound to grant ; (2) that 
 the people had sown, and were entitled to reap their croj^s; 
 (3) that there were no houses provided for them to take 
 shelter in, no ^oor house, no ship. They had nothing but 
 the bare ground, or rather the hard, wet beach, to lie down 
 upon. It was said, or rather insinuated, that ^^arrange- 
 ments'' had been made for them, and in particular that a 
 ship was to have been soon on the coast. But, in the 
 meantime, the peoples' hereditary roofs were to be pulled 
 down, and the mother and her children had only the 
 shore to sleep on, fireless, foodless, hopeless. Resistance 
 was surely not unnatural, and it was very slight. No life 
 was taken, or blood lost. It was a mere noisy and 
 threatening deforcement. 
 
 I am sorry for Lord Macdonald, whose name, he being 
 
356 CIRCUIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 the landlord, was used, but who personally was quite 
 innocent. He was in the hands of his creditors, and they 
 of their doer, a Mr. Cooper, their factor. But his lordship 
 will get all the abuse. 
 
 The slightness of the punishment, four months' imprison- 
 ment, will probably abate the public fury.^ 
 
 Inverness, since I last saw it, has been injured in its 
 beauty in two ways. One is by the erection, on a con- 
 spicuous position, of a very ugly Free Kirk school. The 
 other by the total destruction of the old stone bridge, 
 which was carried off by a flood last winter. No loss 
 could be greater. It was a most picturesque bridge, with 
 pointed, ribbed arches, of a brown stone, and narrow. We 
 shall have a far better new one, wider and flatter, and of a 
 harder material ; but Inverness won't look half so well. 
 
 I had to go to Court yesterday for about an hour, after 
 which we set off, and got here about half-past two. We 
 instantly proceeded ; and after having sem the Sand Hills 
 of Forres for above fifty years, I at last stood upon them. 
 They form a very curious world of fine sand. On our way 
 home we visited the garden of Dalvey, a place near Forres, 
 belonging to a Mr. Macleod, a lover of horticulture. It is 
 a very excellent shrubberied garden, prettily placed on a 
 bit of haugh, with his comfortable-looking house on a bank 
 above it, and a good stream below. His deodars are the 
 best I have seen in Scotland. When his roses are out, it 
 must be splendid ; but at present his gardens, like all others, 
 are crushed and dissolved by the pitiless torrents of this 
 drenchy 1849. 
 
 Knockomie, Saturday Night, 16th Septeinher 1849. — This 
 day, which was pleased to fair, was given to Pluscarden, 
 nine miles ofi", and reached by a coach filled inside and 
 1 Journals, vol. ii. 247. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1849. 357 
 
 out, and two saddle horses. We loitered about the ruin 
 for some hours, and had a turf refection, and a good deal 
 of calotyping, conducted by my friend Cosmo Innes, the 
 Sheriff of the county. 
 
 The abbey is larger, and its fragments better, than I 
 supposed. The colour of the walls, when the sun is on 
 them, is singularly beautiful. It is far better kept than 
 most Scotch ruins are, but still is kept very ill. And in 
 ten or twenty years more, little, if anything, will be visible 
 except a mass of ivy. It is really distressing to see so 
 much architectural ornament given entirely up, in so 
 many places, to this insinuating and insatiable usurper. 
 But what is to be expected where a great part of a 
 religious ruin has been half converted into a modern dwell- 
 ing-house, and another has been converted entirely into a 
 modern kirk ! The said kirk, a little paltry Free Kirk 
 Chapel of Ease, amidst the greatest Presbyterian mean- 
 ness, has a beautiful pulpit of dark, massive carved wood, 
 dated 1684. The wise men of Elgin in rebuilding their 
 church a few years ago, rejected this relic as unworthy of 
 their novelties, and this chapel got it. 
 
 We were home by half-past six, and had a party to 
 dinner. And now for the land of Nod. 
 
 Fochabers, Swiday Nlglit, IQth Septeniber 1849. — Innes 
 and I revisited the unmatched Findhorn to-day, and 
 called at Altyre. It is long since I became acquainted 
 with the woods and glorious river scenery of this place 
 (Altyre), but till to-day I had never resisted my aver- 
 sion to go near the house. It is a beautiful garden, 
 especially the lawny part of it. The Portugal laurels 
 are the largest, except at Broomhall, I have ever seen in 
 Scotland. 
 
 We dined at Knockomie at three, left it at four, were 
 
358 CIR C Ul T JO URNE YS. 
 
 at Elgin at six, saw the cathedral, and were here by eight. 
 And now, Nod again. 
 
 Aberdeen, Monday Night, 11 th September 1849. — Came 
 here to-day, where MoncreifF joined me. 
 
 Ck^TUETO^, Saturday Night, lid September 1849. — The 
 Aberdeen criminal business exhausted four days, Tuesday, 
 Wednesday, Thursday, and yesterday. There were not 
 more cases than usual ; but they happened to be of a 
 worse description. In particular, there were four capital 
 cases, viz. two murders, one murder combined with 
 raptus, and one raptus alone. One of the murders ended 
 in an acquittal, and very properly, because though the guilt 
 was certain and savage, the evidence was not satisfactory. 
 In another murder, a plea of culpable homicide produced 
 twenty years' transportation. The simple raptus ended in 
 a conviction, and in transportation for life. The murder 
 and raptus combined caused a sentence of death. This 
 last was a horrid case. 
 
 The prisoner was James Robb, a country labourer of 
 about twenty-five, a known reprobate, and stout. His 
 victim was Mary Smith, a quiet woman of sixty-two, 
 never married, or a mother, who lived by herself in a 
 lonely house by the wayside. There was a fair held at a 
 village in Aberdeenshire called Badenscoth, which some- 
 times, though in no eminent degree, produced some of the 
 disorderly scenes natural to fairs. 
 
 Mary Smith, though not the least alarmed, happened to 
 observe casually that " she was not afraid of anybody, 
 except that lad Jamie Eobb." That very night Eobb left 
 the fair (9th April 1849) about ten, avowing that he was 
 determined to gratify his passion on somebody before 
 he slept. He had then no thought of this old woman; 
 
NOR TH CIR C UIT—A UTUMN 1 849. 359 
 
 but, unfortunately, her house lay in his way. He asked 
 admittance, upon pretence of lighting his pipe. She re- 
 fused. On this he got upon the roof and went down the 
 chimney, which consisted of a square wooden box about 
 5 feet long by 2 J wide, placed about 8 feet above the fire. 
 Its soot was streaked by his corduroy dress, which helped 
 to identify him. Having got in, the beast fell upon its 
 prey. She was thought in good health, but after death 
 was discovered to have an incipient disease in the heart, 
 which agitation made dangerous, but which might have lain 
 long dormant. The violence of the brute, and the alarm, 
 proved fatal. She was found dead in the morning, and 
 the bed broken, and in the utmost confusion. A remark- 
 able composite metal button, broken from its eye, was 
 found twisted in what the witness called ■' a lurk^' or fold, 
 of the sheet. Buttons of exactly the same kind, and with 
 the same words and figures engraved on them, were found 
 on his jacket, all complete except that one was awanting. 
 But iU eye remained ; and this eye, with its bright recent 
 fracture, exactly fitted the part of the button that had 
 been found. These circumstances would have been suffi- 
 cient to have established his having been in the house. 
 But his declaration admitted the fact. Consent was 
 excluded by its being obvious that it was the energy of 
 her resistance that had killed her. 
 
 It is difficult to drive the horrors of that scene out of 
 one's imagination. The solitary old woman in the solitary 
 house, the descent through the chimney, the beastly 
 attack, the death struggle, — all that was going on within 
 this lonely room, amidst silent fields, and under a still, dark 
 sky. It is a fragment of hell, which it is both difficult to 
 endure and to quit. 
 
 Yet a jury, though clear of both crimes, recommended the 
 brute to mercy ! because he did not intend to commit the 
 
360 CIRCUIT JO URNE ] '.S". 
 
 murder ! Neither does the highwayman, who only means 
 to wound, in order to get the purse, but kills. 
 
 "Within a few hours after he was convicted he confessed, 
 and explained that the poor woman had died in his very 
 grip. (He was executed, solemnly denying his guilt, 
 qiioad raptus!) 
 
 We left Aberdeen this morning, and breakfasted at 
 Drum, the seat, in Strath Dee, of my college acquaintance, 
 A. Forbes Irvine. The house is one of the noble old castles 
 of Aberdeenshire. But I saw no beauty about the place. 
 He has two hollies close beside the mansion, the largest I 
 have ever seen. They are forest trees, very nearly 8 feet 
 in circumference. 
 
 The day was excellent, and the whole drive up here 
 still more glorious than I formerly thought it. 
 
 The Queen is living at Balmoral, and therefore I expected 
 to be obstructed by some of the usual bustle of royalty. 
 But it is reputable for the royalty of this nation that, 
 except by a paltry flag set up before his door by the inn- 
 keeper of Ballater, there was not a vestige of Majesty in 
 any part of the strath. We did not encounter a single 
 carriage, nor a single rider, nor one soldier, nor a police 
 officer, nor anything to mark a distinguished presence. 
 The inns were rather less crowded than usual, the post- 
 horses as fresh, the strath as natural. The sheep, the stots, 
 and even the barelegged children, all went oif exactly as 
 before. Balmoral itself Avas silent ; flagless ; apparently un- 
 guarded ; calm ; beautiful. I think this very respectable 
 in her Majesty and family. It seems to show sense and 
 taste. And the fact that such enjoyment of such virtuous 
 pleasures is not merely possible, but easy and habitual, 
 demonstrates how deep the monarchical principle is in the 
 mind of the country, and how much better it is promoted 
 by rational conduct, than by the common follies of royalty. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— AUTUMN 1849. 361 
 
 The once absolute sovereigns of Europe have often thought 
 that the limited monarch of Britain was no monarch at all. 
 Which of them could now live for an autumn only the 
 more safely that they lived in an unguarded wilderness % 
 
 Perth, Sunday Night, 2'M September 1849. — Came here 
 to-day by the Spittal from Castleton. All beautiful. What 
 a delightful contrast between the glorious green valleyed 
 and blue summited hills of Glenshee, sublime in their 
 treelessness, and the flush of picturesque richness that 
 begins in Stratheric, and continues, through the splendid 
 culture of domains and farms, till it be crowned in Perth. 
 
 BoNALY, Thursday Night, 27th September 1849. — We got 
 free from Court to-day at one, and into the Scottish Central 
 Railway at about four, and after a pause in Edinburgh 
 were here by nine. Her Majesty passed through the Perth 
 station while we were there, on her way home. She left 
 Balmoral by the highway this forenoon ; got on the rail- 
 way at Cupar Angus, and was in Edinburgh, by Stirling, 
 in two and a half hours. All the stations were crowded 
 with people, panting for a sight of her ; and her gracious 
 condescension was expressed by whisking past them at 
 the rate of about thirty miles per hour, with all her win- 
 dows shut. Immense folly ! When I 'm a queen, I shall 
 hold it to be my dignity to go slow. 
 
 I was absorbed during our journey by Sir Charles 
 Ly ell's Second Visit to the United States. I had no idea 
 that my geological friend could write such a book. It is 
 the most manly, the most candid, the most sensible, and 
 the most gentlemanly book existing on America, within 
 his limited range.^ 
 
 Edward Mai tl and was the depute. Excellent. 
 1 I had not then seen Mackay's far deeper work. 
 
GLASGOW CIRCUIT. 
 
 January 1850. 
 
 Edinburgh, 17 th January 1850. — On Tuesday, the 8th 
 inst.. Lord Ivory and I began the Glasgow Winter Circuit. 
 It was not over till the night of Tuesday the 15th, being 
 seven Court days. 
 
 It was an unusually black tribunal, there being 79 cases, 
 involving about 125 culprits; among whom six [seven ^] 
 were charged with murder, and many with other serious 
 crimes. Of the murders, one, a female poisoner,was doomed 
 to die; two were transported for life, and one for seven years, 
 one was acquitted, one escaped, and one was imprisoned. 
 The poisoner had first stolen a bank deposit-receipt, and 
 then finding that she could not get the money without 
 the owner's signature, she forged it, and then, having 
 committed these two offences, she murdered the victim in 
 order to hide them. She was tried for the whole three 
 crimes. The forgery, and the administration of arsenic 
 were very clearly proved. But there was a doubt about 
 the theft, and therefore the jury found it not proved. Yet 
 upon this fact a majority of them grounded by far the 
 most nonsensical recommendation to mercy that any jury, 
 known to me, ever made themselves ludicrous by. They 
 first recommended without stating any reason, and on 
 being asked what their reason was, they retired, and after 
 consultation, returned with these written words, viz. : that 
 they gave the recommendation " in consequence of the 
 
 362 
 
GLASGOW CIRCUIT— JANLTARY 1850. 363 
 
 first charge, of theft, not having been proved, which they 
 believe in a great measure led to the commission of the 
 subsequent crime ! " Grammatically, this means that it 
 was their acquittal of the theft that did the mischief, but 
 what they meant was, that the murder was caused by a 
 theft not proved to have existed. It is the most Hibernian 
 recommendation I have ever seen. 
 
 The preceding recommendation, though backed by the 
 whole force of the very active party opposed to capital 
 punishment, failed, and the poor wretch died. 
 
 Of the 125 accused, about 122 were tried, and of these 
 only six were acquitted, a fact honourable to the criminal 
 practice of Scotland. Eighty-five were transported. 
 
 The peculiarity of this Circuit was that, for the first time 
 at any Circuit in this country, the two judges sat, generally, 
 each in a separate Court, of course doing double work. A 
 statute was passed, to sanction this, about two years ago, 
 but it had never been acted upon. Ivory and I were glad 
 to set the example. It was very popular with everybody, 
 as it saved time and expense. 
 
 This was the first time I had seen Ivory as a criminal 
 judge. He is excellent. His law, and agreeable manner 
 could not be doubted. But, like other good lawyers, he 
 is apt to be beset by nice doubts, and loves them in civil 
 adjudication ; and many people were afraid that he might 
 be troubled by this infirmity on the criminal bench. But 
 if he was, which, however, I saw no symptom of, necessity 
 made him shake it off. He was as decided and hardy as 
 needed to be. A most excellent man. 
 
WEST CIRCUIT. 
 
 April 1850. 
 
 Tarbet, Loch Lomond, Saturday Night, lith April 
 1850. — I am here with Mrs. Cockburn and my niece 
 Elphy Fullerton, on the usual distribution of Argyleshire 
 justice. 
 
 If the people who call themselves "the friends of 
 Sabbath observance " had been possessed of common-sense, 
 I would have been enabled to have attended church, and to 
 have performed all domestic Sunday duties at home to-day, 
 and would then have gone to Glasgow by an evening train 
 to-night, and would have easily reached Inveraray from 
 Glasgow to-morrow. But, being idiots, they allow no 
 Sunday trains on the Edinburgh and Glasgow railway; 
 one consequence of which has been, that I was forced to 
 come here yesterday, and to pass the w^hole of this Sunday 
 in a jnihlic house. This is what they call Sabbath keeping. 
 
 I have never seen a worse Loch Lomond, and hope 
 never to see it again under heavy, vulgar clouds, a surly 
 north wind, and a late spring. 
 
 The monsters are far on with a railway from about 
 Bowling Bay to Balloch. The great benefit of which is, 
 that henceforth the ]public can steam from Glasgow to 
 Bowling in less than an hour, and railway from Bow- 
 ling to Balloch in ten minutes, and steam again all over 
 Loch Lomond at pleasure; for which pleasure there are 
 now three Loch Lomond steamers ready. I am told that 
 
 364 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— APRIL 1850. 365 
 
 the owners of Killarney have been so insensible, or so 
 abstemious, as to resist this luxury for their lake. 
 
 Tarbet, Monday, near Noon, 15th April 1850. — A 
 horrible day of rain and wind. The very masons can't 
 work. But we are off for Inveraray, 
 
 Tarbet, Wednesday Night, 11 th April 1850. — We were 
 at Inveraray from Monday at four till to-day at one. 
 
 All yesterday, till near eleven at night, was passed in 
 Court -trying one case. And a peculiarly villainous one it 
 was. The accused was a tall, well-looking scoundrel of 
 twenty-one, originally an Ayrshire farmer, but who last 
 Whitsunday had taken a farm near Campbeltown. His 
 affairs got desperate ; and having ascertained that this was 
 the fact, and that a declaration of bankruptcy was neces- 
 sary, he closed his last ten free days by the following 
 achievements. He first, by fraudulent concealment of his 
 circumstances, got a very respectable gentlewoman to marry 
 him. He then insured his stock and crop at above four 
 times its true value, and then he set fire to it, having first 
 made a collection of straw among the couples of his byre, 
 which secured the burning alive of thirty cattle. All within 
 ten days. It was for the fire-raising he was tried ; and 
 being convicted, I must confess that the torture of the 
 poor cattle gave me great pleasure in transporting him 
 for twenty years. 
 
 Home to-morrow. 
 
 BONALY, Friday Night, I9th April 1850.— We left Tar- 
 bet yesterday at nine, got to Glasgow at half-past two, 
 left Glasgow at four, were in Edinburgh at half-past five, 
 and here by seven. This gives me a peck of three days 
 amidst my hyacinths and primroses, and on Monday I 
 breakfast at Glasiiow. 
 
366 CIR CUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 BoNALY, Wednesdmj, \st May 1850. — After that break- 
 fast Moncreiff and I went to Court, and worked away 
 diligently, and with a total abstinence of all unnecessary 
 speech, yet we could not finish our 74 cases in that week. 
 I therefore came home by the train that leaves Glasgow at 
 four, and passed Saturday evening and all Sunday here. 
 On Monday the 29th I returned to Glasgow by ten o'clock, 
 and was kept there till next day (yesterday) at three. 
 This was far too long for 74 cases, of which not, I should 
 suppose, above G5 were actually tried. But there were 
 three long ones, each of which usurped a whole day. 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT. 
 
 September 1850. 
 
 Edinburgh, 5th November 1850. — Moncreiff did Ayr; 
 we met at Dumfries ; after which I meant to have done 
 Jedburgh. 
 
 But on my way by rail from Bonaly to Dumfries, on 
 Monday, 15th September, I was seized with what from its 
 frequency seems to be an attack generated by railways, 
 and reached Dumfries in great torture and great danger. 
 I lay in the inn there (the King's Arms) twenty-three days 
 before I could be brought back to Edinburgh, and never 
 can forget the horrors, or the mercies, of the visitation. 
 Of course it was a blank and bitter Circuit. I am not my- 
 self yet, and sometimes wonder if it be true that I am 
 still alive ^ 
 
 It is but justice to the King's Arms to record that, if 
 any one should have to be severely ill in a Scotch inn, 
 he should select this one, which, though in a noisy posi- 
 tion, was quiet inside, and contained a household of the 
 most devoted attention and apparently affectionate kind- 
 ness. 
 
 367 
 
WEST CIIICUIT. 
 
 April 1851. 
 
 Tarbet, Tuesday, Sth Ajjril 1851. — Mrs. Cockbuin, 
 my daughter Johanna, and my granddaughter Lily, left 
 Edinburgh yesterday at four P.M., and stayed at Glasgow all 
 night. To-day we came here. A beautiful day it has 
 been. 
 
 I little fancied, last September, when Moncreiff took 
 leave of me, two-thirds dead, at Dumfries, to do my work 
 at Jedburgh, that he, and not I, was to be first removed 
 from these scenes. But alas ! he died a few days ago 
 (30th March 1851). I shall try to do justice to his 
 character in some other place. Meanwhile, a Circuit with- 
 out him seems to me a left-handed affair. Ivory, whom I 
 am to meet at Glasgow, is my colleague now. 
 
 Luss, Friday, 11th Apil 1851, Night. — We went to 
 Inveraray on Wednesday the 9th ; I was in Court there yes- 
 terday till six ; left it to-day, and were here by four, where 
 we repose all night. 
 
 The weather has been perfect, and if I had not prosed 
 enough about scenery too often already, I would feel par- 
 ticularly impelled to do it now. The three lochs were 
 never more glorious. But the tAvo salt ones have no 
 chance with the fresh. 
 
 I think it was when I was on this Circuit in spring 
 1850 that I observed that the marble slab on Smollett's 
 
WEST CIRCUIT— APRIL 1851. 369 
 
 monument in the village now called Eenton was falling 
 out, and that it had been gradually doing so for years. 
 The whole monument, indeed, was in a disgraceful state, 
 going to ruin on the spot of his birth, and near the dwell- 
 ings of his descendants, and in one of the richest districts 
 of Scotland. In my indignation I wrote a statement of 
 the case, and sent it to my old Outer House friend, Mr. 
 Outram, who now conducts the most widely spread news- 
 paper in Glasgow. He published this, and powerfully 
 appealed to the proper feelings of all concerned himself. 
 
 Well, when I came this way again last Tuesday, I 
 expected to find it all right. Brutes ! it is worse than 
 ever ! Nothing has been done, except by time, and a few 
 months more must see the tablet fall and break. I shall 
 renew my exposure ; and I am strongly inclined to do it 
 openly and in my own name. One pound would do it 
 probably, and certainly five would. Yet to save this sum, 
 and a little care, nativity, nationality, and pedigree all 
 stand by and see it fall into gradual, but rapid and certain, 
 ruin. It is inconceivable, and would justify any terms of 
 abuse. 
 
 BoNALY, Saturday Night, I2th Aiwil 1851. — We came 
 here to-day from Luss. Stirling — which Ivory takes — 
 comes next, and Glasgow on the 2 2d. 
 
 BoNALY, Saturday, Noon, 26/A April 1851. — On Thurs- 
 day the 17th Mrs. Cockburn and I went from this to 
 Thornton, Ayrshire, to visit her sister and spouse, the 
 Cunninghams, and stayed there till the evening of Monday 
 the 2 2d, when we went to Glasgow. 
 
 Next day Ivory and I went to hold the two Courts, a 
 sensible innovation first begun by him and me there in 
 January 1850. Luckily there was no cavalry in the town, 
 
 2 A 
 
370 CIR CUIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 and so we got quit of the absurdity of always going to do 
 justice surrounded by redcoats, sabres, and clattering 
 hoofs, which, however, some of my brethren still love. 
 The business lasted four days, and we came home last 
 night. 
 
 No ferlies to tell. Yes, I saw Outram, who told me 
 that Smollett's representative, whose estate is near the 
 monument, holds that since the family erected it, nobody 
 else shall interfere, and that he himself shall have the sole 
 honour of repairing it. But then there are two considera- 
 tions which obstruct him. One is that he has leen Uamed 
 for not doing it. The other that it will cost a few pounds, 
 perhaps even four or five ; a monstrous sum, considering 
 that he has laid out several pounds already. And thus I 
 suppose it will be allowed to disappear under the joint 
 action of touchiness and penury. He sliould put the 
 inscription on a metal tablet, and add £2 a year to the 
 salary of the schoolmaster beside it, provided its preserva- 
 tion shall show that his taws have done their duty. At 
 present it is, as the inscription says, " Amoris, eheu ! 
 inane monumentum. " 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT. 
 
 September 1851. 
 
 BoNALY, 5th October 1851. — This Circuit Journal has 
 become so insignificant that I had forgotten to make any 
 entry of it till this volume, when I happened to open the 
 desk that contained it, seemed to reproach me. 
 
 But this is all I have to say — 
 
 I went to Kirklands, alone, on Friday the 1 2th of Septem- 
 ber, and stayed there till the morning of Monday the 15th, 
 when I went to Jethart, and did justice there, from ten 
 to half-past three, on six paltry villains. George Dundas 
 and I then walked up the Jed, in the sweetest of evenings. 
 At six that beastly Circuit dinner was held. It was 
 described in the papers next day as " an elegant entertain- 
 ment ^ Elegance and the Spread Eagle at Jedburgh 
 probably never came together before; and the only 
 elegance that I am aware of, was, that nineteen persons 
 drank thirty-five bottles of wine. At night George and I 
 returned to Kirklands, so that the eagle had me in his 
 claws scarcely at all. 
 
 I came home on Wednesday the 17th. 
 
 On Friday the 19th Mrs. Cockburn and T, and my 
 daughter Johanna, and my granddaughter Lily, went to 
 Thornton, near Kilmarnock, where my brother-in-law, Mr. 
 Cunningham, was living; and on Monday the 2 2d, I, 
 leaving the rest there, went to Doonholm, the hired seat of 
 my Lord Justice- Clerk, where I dined, and stayed all 
 
 371 
 
372 CIR CUIT JO URNE VS. 
 
 night. Lord Ivory was there, and he and I processed into 
 Ayr next morning to breakfast, after which we judicially 
 dittoed eight dittos, and then had a glorious walk along 
 the beach, from four to near six. Then came the banquet. 
 And then, that night, I drove back to Thornton. 
 
 Ivory did Dumfries alone. I had no desire to excite 
 the recollection of the sufferings there of last autumn. 
 
 And so ends the South Circuit of autumn 1851. 
 Twenty-four cases in all, out of a population of nearly 
 half a million. 
 
 An accident occurred at Ayr worth being recorded for 
 the edification of the idolaters of Form. A few hours 
 before the Court was to open, the clerk came to me with 
 his hair on end, and announced that, by some blunder, 
 none of the proper technical papers had arrived from 
 Edinburgh. There were no original indictments, declara- 
 tions, or productions, no executions, consequently no 
 evidence that any accused, or juryman, or prisoner, had 
 been cited to attend — no anything. I bade him hold his 
 tongue, and proceed as if everything was right, and 
 explained to all the counsel who were present for 
 prisoners what had happened, and that their objecting 
 could only end in the trials being put off, and their clients 
 suffering longer imprisonment. In this state we proceeded 
 to business. What communication took place between 
 them and the prisoners I do not know, but everything 
 went on as usual. Jurors and witnesses attended and 
 acted, copies were read instead of originals, and nobody 
 could have suspected that there was any flaw. No Circuit 
 could proceed more quietly, or more effectively ; nor was 
 any attempt ever made to raise any doubt afterwards. A 
 valuable precedent against nonsense. 
 
NOETH CIRCUIT. 
 
 April 1852. 
 
 Aberdeen, Thursday Night, 8th April 1852. — I left 
 Bonaly this morning at eight, with my daughter Johanna. 
 At half-past nine Miss Susan Lauder joined us at the 
 station, and we dived into the tunnel for Granton, crossed 
 to Burntisland in less than half an hour, and in three 
 hours from our first moving, were at Broughty. We 
 stayed there two and a half hours, and at 3.15 set out 
 again by the rails, and in about three hours were here. 
 
 My object in selecting this track was to avoid the long 
 round by Stirling and Perth, and to get the rest at 
 Broughty ; Dumfries having taught me, in September 
 1850, that too much railenj is an unbecoming thing for an 
 aged judge. 
 
 I never was in Broughty before. It is the Portobello 
 of Dundee. And, except in one particular, it is decidedly 
 superior to the Portobello of Edinburgh. It is backed by 
 high rising ground, and of uneven surface, on which are 
 perched an increasing variety of good gardened houses, 
 some of which are obviously excellent mansions ; and it 
 has a visible and near coast opposite, instead of the bound- 
 less sea. But it wants the glorious Portobello sands; 
 and it seems to me that its marine ablutions must be 
 greatly interfered with by the intervention of the railway 
 between the houses and the sea. The want of shore-line 
 
374 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 makes Portobello the least marine of any sea-place I 
 know. 
 
 The day was beautiful. But except the ocean and per- 
 fect farming, there is nothing to attract from Burntisland 
 to Aberdeen. The sea was dead calm, under a sleepy 
 haze, the fields all dressed like gardens, and all in dry, 
 weedless purity. 
 
 Westhall, Saturclaij Afternoon, 10th Ajjril 1852. — We 
 left Aberdeen yesterday forenoon, and came here. 
 
 This place is about nine miles from Inverurie, and one 
 from Pitmachie, and about one mile off the high-road to 
 the West. My excellent friend Lord Ivory took it on lease 
 last year, and has it till next May. He has a very odd 
 custom of going to the country every year, but of changing 
 his quarters every two, or at most three, seasons. I have 
 known him in I should suppose at least a dozen of rura- 
 lities, including Mid-Lothian, West Lothian, Peeblesshire, 
 Argyle, Aberdeen, etc., and this summer he honours Perth- 
 shire, It is a good way to see districts, but not to enjoy 
 the country. A man's taste for nature must be very abstract 
 which attaches itself to no particular scene, which has no 
 alliances with its known fields, or trees, or flowers, no 
 associations with the effects of the sun as it revisits his 
 chosen haunts or prospects. Accordingly, it is fishing 
 that he is chiefly hooked by ; and, to be sure, a lover of 
 the angle is very apt to love angling alone. 
 
 This was the portion of earth from which the judge 
 called Lord Westhall took his official title. He reigned 
 on the bench from 1777-84. It is a very enjoyable place, 
 at least in the splendid weather of yesterday and to-day. 
 The old portion of the house, though very small, is worthy 
 of Aberdeenshire. The original tower, and the secondary 
 structure, are both very curious. The tower very pictur- 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— APRIL 1852. 375 
 
 esque. A modem addition has been recently made, much 
 to the inward comfort of the domicile, but of the most 
 unnecessary abominableness outside. It is nearly sur- 
 rounded by hills, which, however, are not so near as to 
 form parts of the home scenery. One of these, and the 
 nearest — about two miles off — is the famous Benachie, 
 at the back of which the Gawdie runs — the said Gawdie 
 being within three or four hundred yards of the house 
 I am sorry to be obliged to confess that there is as little 
 poetry in the stream (but plenty trout) as in any poetised 
 stream I ever saw. It flows through an open, and bare, 
 and rockless country, and has not pebbles enough to keej) 
 itself always pure. Bennachie is a very respectable range 
 of mountain, with one towering summit, and one or two 
 of lesser pretensions, — no rocky accompaniments that are 
 apparent, and no ravines or corries, but a very respectable 
 long line of hill. 
 
 To-day we drove round it — a drive of about twenty miles. 
 On this side of it is the Gawdie, on the other side the Don. 
 This side is generally woodless; the other all wooded. 
 AVe went through Castle Forbes and a good deal of Mony- 
 musk, through both of which the Don flows. Lord 
 Forbes (who forsakes the Scotch Don for the society of an 
 English priest) has lately built a new house, in as bad 
 taste as possible. It seemed to me like a copy of the house 
 at Johnstone, near Paisley ; only what may be excusable 
 in one place may be inexcusable in the other. Castle 
 Forbes is on the Don, and in Aberdeenshire f I wonder 
 that the builder did not tremble lest the true old castles 
 of this most architectural shire should step out and tread 
 his base tower and contemptible bright freestone under their 
 feet. I saw no ornamental attempt about the grounds ; 
 but Nature has done as much as she can ever do for river 
 scenery with no rock, and with only young wood. But 
 
376 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 the hills, the stream, the cultivated haughs, and the pro- 
 fusion of wood scarcely middle-aged, made miles of the 
 valley delightful, even though the trees, including the very 
 larches, were all leafless. In summer it must be beautiful. 
 
 The Monymusk forests seem to me much older, and the 
 whole character of the ground consequently much superior. 
 
 But, in every respect, the strath of the Don is greatly 
 inferior to the strath of the Dee. 
 
 Industry can point to no greater triumph than to this 
 part of Scotland called Garioch. The people's slow vic- 
 tory over obstacles that would have seemed insuperable 
 even to a Dutchman, is perfectly astonishing. The result 
 is, large districts of cleared, open fields, treeless and hedge- 
 less, fenced by mounds of great granite blocks, and all 
 admirably cultivated, though with almost no sheep pasture. 
 Every manageable portion seems to have been given up, 
 to be subdued, to one or to a few families, which seem to 
 have become the tenants of what their toil had created. 
 One pleasing effect of this system has been the scattering of 
 small farmers and " toons " all over the reclaimed regions, 
 with their simple but comfortable establishments of little 
 barn-yards, peat-stacks, and hoary splashing mills. I saw 
 in one village, of about a dozen of one-storied houses, this 
 sign : — " Entertainment for men and horses, clothier, and 
 grocer'^ And another announcing ^^ Lodgings and small 
 
 Knockomie, Friday Night, 16th Apil 1852. — On the 
 11th of April we went from Westhall to this very agree- 
 able nest, which took us from about nine to five. Next 
 day, till five o'clock, was passed on the Findhorn, and at 
 dear Relugas. No such river scenery in Scotland. 
 
 At five we set out for Inverness. 
 
 Next day, being Tuesday the 13th, the Court opened 
 
NORTH ClRCUir— APRIL 1852. 377 
 
 there, and the business lasted till Thursday (yesterday) 
 about two. 
 
 The only interesting case was that of Mrs. and Mr. 
 Fraser, a mother and her son (a lad), who had chosen 
 to poison their father, a shopkeeper in Ross-shire. They 
 thought him a useless creature, and that they would be 
 better without him, especially as the wife had forged 
 his name to bills, in reference to which his removal, before 
 they became due, would be convenient. I never saw 
 a couple of less amiable devils. The mother especially, 
 had a cold, hard eye, and a pair of thin resolute lips, pro- 
 ducing an expression very fit for a remorseless and steady 
 murderess. She saw her daughter, a little girl, brought 
 in as a witness, and heard her swear that there were no 
 rats in the house, and that her father's sufferings were 
 very severe, with a look of calm, severe ferocity, which 
 would have done no discredit to the worst woman in hell. 
 They were both convicted, but I fear that the gallows 
 won't get its due. A legal doubt occurred, on which we 
 held ourselves bound to consult the Court before pro- 
 nouncing sentence ; and if this doubt be resolved in the 
 prisoners' favour, they will escape altogether ; and even if 
 it be decided against them, the delay will probably save 
 their lives, which will be a pity. 
 
 We came here again yesterday evening. This day was 
 spent in paying visits in Forres, at Dalvey, and at Altyre. 
 At Dalvey I saw the Victoria Lily for the first time, not 
 in flower, but living, and in leaf. I was taken to visit an 
 old lady in Forres, called Miss Macpherson, certainly a 
 person well worth seeing. She called herself eighty, but 
 is said to be eighty-four, and has a face which must have 
 once been beautiful, and is still very handsome. She is 
 in perfect preservation, and in great talk ; has known, and 
 recollects every person and every event in the north of 
 
378 CIK C UIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 Scotland in her day ; is always in excellent spirits, and 
 has a delightful northern accent and dialect, with a will- 
 ing flow of strong sense and acute observation, generally 
 of a cheerful character. A most enviable specimen of old 
 age. She twice made use of an expression which struck 
 me as very descriptive. I had asked who a particular 
 Grant and a particular Fraser were, and she, meaning to 
 describe them as just of their respective clans, said of each, 
 "Hoot, he's just the growth of the ground." She goes to 
 Edinburgh in a few days to get her tusks repaired. " Not 
 from vanity, but because I can't eat well." 
 
 I went to Altyre to see Sir William Gumming, but 
 missed him, a far more curious creature than any that 
 his son Roualeyn encountered in Africa. 
 
 Aberdeen, Monday Night, Idth April 1852. — We went 
 from Knockomie to Westhall last Saturday, the 17th, 
 and stayed there till this forenoon. Yesterday I walked 
 with Archibald Davidson, the Sheriff of Aberdeenshire, to 
 very nearly the top of Benachie. Fog made it needless 
 to go on. It is a very easy, and for prospect a very 
 useless exploit. 
 
 Perth, Thursday Night, 22d April 1852.— We left 
 Aberdeen to-day at 2.30, after two contemptible and very 
 tiresome days in Gourt. 
 
 While there I heard of the deaths of two locally great 
 men. 
 
 One was James Gordon of Graig, whom I have men- 
 tioned already, the most splutteratious of orators, but who 
 seeded in his old age into a very kind and respectable 
 country gentleman. 
 
 The other was William, Baron Panmure, who was 
 buried last Tuesday, aged above eighty, of whose virtues 
 
NORTH ClRCUrr— APRIL 1852. 379 
 
 and grand funeral the district rings. The funeral, no 
 doubt, was as grand as a mob of tenants and dependants, 
 and police officers, and military pensioners, and magis- 
 trates, and all manner of burgh feculence, could make it. 
 He had lived all his life among them, and had always 
 made himself popular with those who chose to be submis- 
 sive, and, to such, was never close in the fist. But the 
 virtues were a different matter. To his unfriends — and 
 he made many — he was insanely brutal. His wife, his 
 daughters, and at least two of his three sons, he compelled 
 to fly from his house — his daughters at midnight, and 
 ever after shut his door and his heart against them; 
 neither time nor their worth ever abating his mad and 
 savage hatred. And so it was with every one who in- 
 curred the ineffaceable guilt of daring to resist the capri- 
 cious and intolerant despotism of his will. He would 
 have roasted every soul of them, and their bodies too. A 
 spoiled beast from its infancy. 
 
 His oldest son, who presumed to save his sisters by 
 helping them out of the house, was the object of his pecu- 
 liar hatred ; a hatred which the public eminence of the 
 son rather aggravated than lessened. About two years 
 ago the monster celebrated his survivance from a danger- 
 ous illness by a dinner to some of his tenants. His health, 
 of course, was drunk, after which he gave " The Disap- 
 pointed one" meaning his son ; upon which a farmer quietly 
 observed that " he had never heard the Deil drunk before'' 
 
 My plan, on leaving Aberdeen, was to have been to- 
 night at Birnam, and to have passed the next three days 
 there. For this purpose I had written to the Birnam host 
 to send a carriage for me to the Dunkeld road station. 
 But on reaching that station, no carriage appeared ; and 
 while we were wondering and speculating, the train that 
 had taken us there was allowed to proceed ; and we were 
 
380 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 left, ten miles from Birnam, and four from Perth, on the 
 road, at six p.m. It looked, for some time, as if we 
 should have had to walk here. But at last we got a car 
 for our three selves, and a cart for the luggage, and made 
 for this harbour of refuge. But this misadventure, joined 
 to our first bad weather, has extinguished our Birnam 
 visions, and reconciled me to the unnatural idea of return- 
 ing home to-morrow and passing the two next days at 
 Bonaly, before opening the criminal fire here on Monday. 
 This is a sad break in a North Circuit. But I shall see 
 my too soon blown, and too rapidly dying, hyacinths. 
 
 Steell's magnificent bust of old Panmure, which has 
 been erected, I believe, in the Town Hall of one of his 
 parasite burghs, will transmit to any posterity that may 
 inquire about him, an idea of his outer man. As a work 
 of art, it is admirable ; and though those who never saw 
 the original must suppose it to be colossal, it is rather a 
 miniature of one who was nearly as monstrous in coarse 
 bodily structure as in the composition of his mind. It 
 has already transpired by his settlement that the wretch 
 maintained his domestic fiendism to the last. He is under- 
 stood to have left a considerable personal residue to a 
 domestic captain, and only about £2000 to one of his 
 three foor daughters, and a sort of curse to a son. If it 
 be so, the pleasure of anticipating the posthumous eff'ect 
 of this living heartlessness, was, next to predominating 
 over a jovial crew of low flatterers, probably his greatest 
 living luxury. 
 
 Perth, Thursday Night, 29th April 1852. — I enjoyed the 
 hyacinths for two days, having gone to Bonaly on Friday 
 the 23d, and stayed there on Saturday and Sunday, and 
 returned here to breakfast on Monday last the 26th, where 
 Ivory rejoined me. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— APRIL 1852. 881 
 
 There was one huff hyacinth that, of itself, was worth 
 the whole journey. It shone, amidst its fellows, like a 
 speech by Logan at Stirling. I was just in time to catch 
 their dying odours. 
 
 We are here still, but shall return to peace and Eden 
 to-morrow. 
 
 This has been the most murderous Circuit I have ever 
 known. Besides the two Frasers at Inverness, we have 
 had three Cains here — viz., Thomas Lyneham, who beat 
 his sister-in-law so as to cause her to die ; Mrs. Blyth, who 
 broke her old mother's head with the tongs ; and Charles 
 Fancoat, who plunged a butcher's knife literally through 
 the body of a fellow- workman who had struck him with 
 the fist some time before. However, there was only one 
 capital sentence. The sister-in-law was in such bad 
 health, that this raised one of the doubts, at which juries are, 
 justly, so apt to catch, and he was treated as an assaulter. 
 Mrs. Blyth was proved to have been insane when she did 
 her deed, and was disposed of accordingly. She was a 
 hard, sensible-like woman, who lived in a village in Fife 
 with her mother, to whom she was much attached. But 
 the daughter's reason had been gradually leaving her for 
 two years, till at last it was gone, and she passed her time 
 in visionary misery in bed. One of her prevailing alarms 
 was for her nose, which seemed a very respectable article ; 
 but she was convinced that it had got black, and was 
 going to fall off. When told that she had killed her 
 mother, she said, " Weel, had she no lived lang eneuch." 
 Nevertheless, she was clearly of opinion that she herself 
 ought to be hanged, and was disappointed when the cere- 
 mony was avoided. Fancoat, though strongly recom- 
 mended to mercy by the jury, will probably suffer. His 
 was a clear murder. He and his victim had been quarrel- 
 ling throughout the day, and in these half-drunken con- 
 
382 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 flicts he had been ill-used. But at last they had parted, 
 and he was safe, when, instead of being quiet, he went 
 and borrowed a long and mortal knife, and proceeded 
 apparently in quest of the other man, and meeting him, 
 gave him a strong stab, which produced death in a few 
 minutes. He is a young Englishman, of excellent charac- 
 ter, whose good feelings were evinced to those who, 
 like me, observed his emotion when some of his native 
 villagers came forward to attest his peaceableness and 
 humanity of disposition. I cannot help wishing that his 
 life may be spared. It was whisky and groundless fear 
 that, for the moment, overthrew his better nature.^ 
 
 My excellent friend A. S. Logan was counsel, both in 
 this case and in that of the Frasers, for the prisoners, and 
 shone in neither. He is a very curious man. To talent, 
 sense, and a considerable power of speaking, he joins great 
 kindliness, perfect honesty, and a more comfortable pre- 
 dominance of professional candour than generally is, or 
 can be reduced to practice amidst legal conflicts. His 
 father was a dissenting minister at St. Ninians, and if his 
 son could have got out of the manse a little in his youth, 
 especially to England, he might perhaps have refined him- 
 self out of some of his defects. For he has the misfor- 
 tunes of a homely, good-natured vulgarity, a bad, loud 
 voice, a taste for bad jokes, which owe all their eff*ect to 
 their resolving into Loganisms, and a propensity, always 
 dangerous, towards stories about himself. These things, 
 which he thinks his excellences, keep him in a lower 
 sphere than his talent, his honesty, and his worth belong 
 to. I have a great regard for him, and mean to adven- 
 ture on an admonition some day. But I fear that his 
 skin has now become too Ethiopian. 
 
 1 He has only been transported. 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— APRIL 1852. 388 
 
 BoNALY, Saturday Night, \st May 1852. — Ivory, wlio was 
 panting for his two last weeks of Westhall (for he goes 
 this year to Eossie Ochil), left me yesterday morning, and 
 would dine in Garioch. Only one case, but a most 
 brutal one, remained, and in a couple of hours it ended in 
 a transportation for life. 
 
 I need scarcely say that it came from Dundee, certainly 
 now, and for many years past, the most blackguard place in 
 Scotland. Perth and its shire are always remarkably inno- 
 cent. Nearly the whole guilt at this place proceeds from the 
 tAvo counties of Fife and Forfarshire, and, of course, chiefly 
 from their towns. Of these towns, Kirkcaldy, Cupar, and 
 Montrose seem well behaved enough. Arbroath is not 
 good ; Dunfermline (always meaning the district) very bad ; 
 Dundee a sink of atrocity, which no moral flushing seems 
 capable of cleansing. A Dundee criminal, especially if a 
 lady, may be known, without any evidence about character, 
 by the intensity of the crime, the audacious bar air, and the 
 parting curses. What a set of she-devils were before us ! 
 Mercy on us ! if a tithe of the subterranean execration 
 that they launched against us, after being sentenced, was 
 to be as eff'ective as they wished it, commination never 
 was more cordial. 
 
 Our weather could not have been better for our pur- 
 poses, if we ourselves had had the choice of it. How 
 beautifully Inverness and Perth lay, in the mornings, amidst 
 their calm rising smoke, their bursting verdure, and their 
 soft, glorious rivers. 
 
 Our accusing spirit was David Mure, of whom eight 
 years more of acquaintance enables me to confirm all that 
 I have already said. 
 
 I never owed so little to books on any Circuit. My 
 friend Susan Lauder, when left to herself, was steadily 
 busy with an Italian work which professed to make 
 
3S4 CTR C UIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 Astronomy clear to the simple : and Johanna turned over 
 the leaves of a variety of circulating library trash. Mo 
 relief for me there. For myself I had Adam Grahame of 
 Mossgray, a new novel by the young authoress (whose name 
 I forget) who has written some other excellent Scotch 
 fictitious stories. This seems to me to be a considerable 
 descent, for her. I could only yawn and nod over it. 
 But then I had in the 194th number another of the sound 
 and learned, but heavy opiates of the reverenced Edinhurgh 
 Review ; and this generally made the nod sink into 
 slumber. 
 
WEST CIECUIT. 
 
 October 1852. 
 
 BoNALY, 25//i October 1852. — What a date for a Circuit ! 
 But last July the Eichardsons were idle enough, or kind 
 enough, to wish to read this journal, and I sent it to them, 
 and only brought it back from Kirklands to-day. 
 
 However, I have nothing but dates to tell about my 
 Western Circuit of September. 
 
 I went alone (!) to Stirling on Wednesday, the 15th, in 
 the forenoon, and had rather an alarming entry into that 
 historical city. The magistrates met me at the station, 
 from whence we processed to the hotel, they on foot, and 
 my lord in his four-horsed carriage. But no sooner had 
 my lord got near the hotel, than the band of the 4 2d 
 Regiment, a company of which was posted at the door, 
 struck up a sudden crash of drums and pipes, whereupon 
 the unmilitary steeds made a furious and sharp counter- 
 march, and were flying down the steep street, to the 
 horror of the spectators, when, after throwing off the 
 drivers, thej^ were brought to a halt by one of them fall- 
 ing on its side, on which his lordship whisked out, by the 
 aid of a bailie, who said, " Gude God ! the like o' this 
 never happened in the toon o' Stirling before." 
 
 Leonard Horner, Mrs. and Miss Joanna Horner, Mr. 
 John Tait, Sheriff of Clackmannan, and his brother 
 Archibald, now Dean of Carlisle (but to he a bishop), dined 
 with me. A pleasant evening. 
 
 2 B 
 
386 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 Next day, the 16th, was for the Court, which was dis- 
 solved about four, and then followed the tiresome and 
 disreputable dinner. 
 
 On the 17th I came home, with the Horners. 
 
 Stirling was never more glorious than during these two 
 days. 
 
 I remained at home from the 17th till Friday the 24th, 
 when, with my daughter-in-law Mary, I went to Thornton 
 in Ayrshire to visit my sister-in-law Mrs. Cunninghame ; 
 and on the morning of Monday the 27th I Avent to Glasgow. 
 I was there joined by Ivory, who had been at Inverness, 
 and we opened the Court at twelve. The business there 
 lasted till the evening of Friday the 1st of October, and 
 I returned home on Saturday the 2d. 
 
 A shabby affair. 
 
 The Depute was Edward Gordon. He is agreeable, 
 modest, and able ; one of the very best specimens of our 
 bar Celts. His talent, industry, and power of pleasing 
 distinct speaking, I predict will raise him high in his pro- 
 fession. He is one of the few counsel who can be calm 
 without feebleness, and argumentative without vehemence. 
 Listening to Edward Gordon arguing law is like listening 
 to a piece of what is meant to be mathematics. The 
 demonstration may often fail, the demonstration tone 
 never. 
 
GLASGOW CIECUIT. 
 
 Winter 1853. 
 
 Edinburgh, 2 Manor Place, I9th Jamiary 1853. — I 
 had nearly forgotten the late Glasgow Circuit, — the last 
 winter one I shall last to go. 
 
 I went to Glasgow alone (!) on the morning of Monday, 
 3d January 1853, and, after the usual proceedings, /got 
 home in the forenoon of Thursday the 6th. Ivory's cases 
 detained him in Court for some hours upon that day ; but 
 he was domestically housed that night. 
 
 I have little else to record. 
 
 The whole four days and nights were one ceaseless tor- 
 rent of rain, which fell through one unbroken mass of cold, 
 thick, wet, palpable fog, through which carts, cabs, vans, 
 drays, and all sorts of manufacturing conveyances roared, 
 as usual, without above two hours' cessation in the twenty- 
 four. These two hours of truce were, and in Glasgow are, 
 between two and four in the morning, before and after 
 which neither London nor hell contain any vehicular roar 
 more accursedly magnificent. Indeed, even these two hours 
 are not always safe. For w^ien I was deluding myself, in my 
 second night watch, with the hope of silence and Elysium, 
 the roar went on till four o'clock roused the whole host of 
 labour to the toil and the noise of the day. And what 
 caused this exception ? A hall, in the college, at the pro- 
 fessors of divinity ! The least offensive sort of theological 
 turmoil. 
 
388 CIRCUIT /O URNE YS. 
 
 There were two cases of murder, with convictions in 
 both. One was a mere commonplace affair of a woman 
 drowning her illegitimate infant. About 2500 decent 
 women have petitioned the Crown for a commutation.^ 
 The other was the case of a fellow who, in hatred of 
 his stepmother, intimated his determination to kill the 
 child which she was soon to be delivered of, and kept his 
 word by cutting off its head. His defence was insanity. 
 A.nd no doubt he was as mad as gusts of passion could 
 make him, but not nearly mad enough to cut off heads 
 with impunity. However, I did not discourage the jury 
 from convicting him, and thus avoiding the usual dan- 
 gerous verdict, but recommending him to mercy on the 
 ground of his intellect being defective. This they did, and 
 his life has been allowed to proceed. But as the public 
 reason on this question has been returning of late, the 
 next half-crazy murderer will probably fare worse. 
 1 And they succeeded. 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT. 
 
 Spring 1853. 
 
 BoNALY, 1 6th April 1853, Saturday. — On the evening 
 of Wednesday last, the 13th, I went alone, by rail, to 
 Melrose, took horses there, and got under the wings of 
 the Spread Eagle at nine. AVas in Court next day till 
 four, then up the Jed with George Dundas, — a walk 
 I never willingly miss. There is something in that 
 valley that never fails to move me. The lateness of 
 this season deprived it of its due of leaves, but it was 
 rich in buds and mavises ; its haugh, where grassy, 
 was so green, and where under crop, so clean and so 
 evenly harrowed, its stream so pure, and all so soft and 
 peaceful, that it felt like an amiable heart. He must 
 be very prosaic indeed whom the softness of that glen, 
 especially in the evening, does not touch wdth some 
 poetical emotion. 
 
 After a beastly dinner, and another night of the Bird of 
 Jove, I drove yesterday to Melrose to breakfast, and feel 
 bound to record the unrivalled excellence of the fried eggs 
 and bacon. Melrose and its associates were most beautiful. 
 But on the whole I think Jedburgh the better place of 
 the two ; not perhaps in its actual and present state, for 
 it is squalid in daily increasing poverty, but in its possi- 
 bihties. It has a deeper feeling of old repose. The ruin, 
 though less beautiful than that of Melrose, is grander. 
 For enjoyment and personal affection, the little Jed is 
 
390 CIR C UI T JO URNE YS. 
 
 not inferior to the large and guarded historic Tweed. 
 Jedburgh nestles better into its hidden nook. All that it 
 needs is the summer attraction of visitors and families to 
 put some life and some pence into it. Melrose is greatly 
 improving itself in this way, owing to its having a railway 
 at its door. If Jedburgh cannot get its dotage stopped 
 somehow, the abbey will soon be the liveliest thing 
 in it. 
 
 Whoever wishes to see the contrast between the Scotch 
 past and the Scotch present, should look on Melrose and 
 Galashiels, and on Jedburgh and Hawick. Mouldering 
 ruins, attesting the predominance of a single worship, and 
 that the papal, and connected with great national occur- 
 rences, solitude, poverty, and silence, on the one side ; and, 
 but a few miles off, manufactures, bustle, wealth, popula- 
 tion, and newness, on the other; the solitary ruins sink 
 the modern vulgarities into contempt. Both are best, but 
 each in its place. Trade cannot mix itself with the 
 sacred haunts of visible antiquity without profaning or 
 destroying them, and should therefore keep to its own 
 place. And I suppose it is from conscious shame that it 
 generally does so 
 
 I left Melrose at 11.15, and was here — in my natural 
 grey jacket attire — by two. 
 
 In one case I added hard labour to imprisonment — a 
 thing I never did, or saw done, in our Justiciary before. 
 It is only now that we are enabled to do it by Govern- 
 ment, through the Prison Board having prescribed what 
 the hardness should consist in. It ought to be part of the 
 punishment of male incorrigibles in almost all cases. 
 
 Ivory goes in a few days to Dumfries, after which the 
 waters meet at Ayr. 
 
 Thornton, Sunday Forenoon, 2ith April 1853. — My 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1853. 391 
 
 daughter Johanna and I came here from Bonaly the day 
 before yesterday ; from hence I go to Craigie House to- 
 morrow, and we hoist the Bloody Flag on Tuesday the 
 26th. 
 
 One of my youthful acquaintances was Robert Kennedy, 
 eldest son of the then John Kennedy of Underwood. He 
 came to the bar a year or two after me, and died in 1805. 
 We were very intimate for about six years, and had a 
 kindred ardour in the pursuit of all things becoming 
 ambitious youths. We read and discoursed about litera- 
 ture and philosophy — wrote essays and made orations in 
 the Speculative Society; dined, and quaffed, and recited 
 verse, and walked for ever — the sea, Roslin, and Arthur 
 Seat being our favourite haunts. I went twice to see him at 
 Underwood, which is within about five or six miles from Ayr, 
 and on one of these occasions (in 1802, I think) remained 
 about six weeks. None of the family were there except 
 his father — a very kind and excellent man, whose only 
 defect consisted in an intense, and somewhat fantastic, 
 desire not only to le a gentleman, which he really was in 
 his conduct and feelings, but to appear like one in his 
 manners and talk. So Eobert and I had six weeks of 
 Ayrshire rusticity, in July and August, to ourselves ; and 
 we enjoyed it greatly. We walked, and coach -topped, all 
 over the country, got deep in the then perpetual balls and 
 dinners and flirtations of Ayr, and as the gentleman was 
 never from home, and was very kind and social with us, 
 we were always sure of a good plain dinner, and any 
 quantity of wine and of punch, with him. They were very 
 happy days. Our most ambitious labour was in the con- 
 struction of a bathing-place in a small burn near the 
 house. We were tempted to it by the excessive heat of 
 the season, the umbrage of two or three respectable 
 beeches, and the pleasure of toiling, especially as the 
 
392 CIRCUIT JO URNE YS. 
 
 toil provoked the dinner goblets of porter, and the evening 
 cups of wine. We worked more than half naked, and 
 were bitten as red as partans by the horse - flies and 
 midges, which, however, produced refreshing contrasts by- 
 perpetual plunges into the pool. I left it all finished 
 when I came home, the model, as we thought, of a rustic, 
 open air, burn bath, and our names cut, for immortality, 
 into the bark of a beech. 
 
 Well, I never again beheld the scene of all this till 
 yesterday. John Kennedy, Robert's brother, who is now 
 the laird, was obliged to leave Edinburgh from bad health 
 about three years ago, and retired to Underwood ; hearing 
 that I was to be in the neighbourhood, he invited me to 
 go and see him and the place. I said that I would, and 
 yesterday did so. 
 
 The place, which is a mere farm, and has very little 
 beauty, either natural or artificial, is nearly quite unchanged. 
 A recent porch has improved the house, and the adjoining 
 steading is modernised. The burn trickles as of yore. 
 But of the bath, though long protected, after Robert's 
 death, by the aff'ection of his father, not a vestige remains, 
 not a particle or a trace. Vegetation has effaced our very 
 names from the tree. I fancied that I could plausibly 
 refer to a few marks as showing that it still owned frag- 
 ments of us, but was conscious that the truth was that 
 it did not, successions of other names, down apparently 
 to last year, have followed ours, and are all passing into 
 our oblivion. Such is vanity, or glory, or the aversion to 
 be forgotten. 
 
 Few things are more fallacious than anticipations as to 
 how young men are, or are not, to turn out. But, though 
 his manner was good, I still think that if poor Robert's 
 life had been prolonged, he would have been distin- 
 guished ; for his abilities were superior, and they were 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1853. 393 
 
 combined with great industry, ardent ambition, and excel- 
 lent affections. His poor father survived him many- 
 years, but his spirit was always hovering about his son's 
 grave. 
 
 I saw a journal yesterday which it seems that Eobert had 
 been in the practice of keeping. It contained this entry : 
 " 7th June 1803. Dined with Cockburn, sate till four" 
 (he means next morning), " walked " {i.e. both of us) *' to 
 Arthur's Seat, and returned at five in the morning." Thus 
 summed up. "Study, ^\ hours; company, 15 J; exer- 
 cise, 2 ; sleep, 0." 
 
 He and Eichardson and I were insatiable of Arthur 
 Seat and sun's rising. It was our Parnassus. And this was 
 a common way of enjoying it. First to dine about four, 
 to be sociable for a few hours, then a walk, then more 
 sociality from about ten till the sun's hour was approach- 
 ing, then up the hill, and then down to a few hours' 
 sleep, or, as on this day with Kennedy, to feverish study. 
 Yet, Take notice, there never was the slightest drunken- 
 ness. Elevation there was; but it stopped far, very 
 far, below the intoxication mark. Excess in wine was 
 never the habit of any set of friends into which I have 
 been thrown. 
 
 BONALY, 29th April 1853. — I left Thornton on Monday 
 the 25th ; dined and stayed all night at Craigie House ; 
 was in Court on Tuesday and Wednesday the 2Gth and 
 27th; got off on the 27th in time to dine at Thornton; 
 stayed there all night; left it on 28th (yesterday), and was 
 here to dinner. 
 
 I expected to be kept much longer at Ayr ; but a 
 friendly witness favoured a bad murderer by staying away, 
 a culpably negligent railway guard had the sense to prefer 
 outlawry to conviction ; and an apothecary weaver, who 
 
394 CIRCUI T JO URNE YS. 
 
 slew a child by a wrong dose, professed penitence and 
 pleaded guilty, and these " Providences^' as some religious 
 pedants call such things, freed us. 
 
 Our Depute was Andrew Clark, a youth of whom I 
 augur very favourably. 
 
NOETH CIECUIT. 
 
 September 1853. 
 
 Castleton, Braemar, Wednesday NicjM, 2Sth 
 1853. — Ivory took Inverness, which I escaped. 
 
 But on the day before yesterday — being Monday the 
 26th instant — my daughter Johanna and I left Edinburgh 
 at 6.30, and got to Perth, b}'- Stirling, by ten. After 
 remaining there three hours, we set off for Aberdeen, but 
 had to wait for three-quarters of an hour at Forfar, — an 
 excellent arrangement, which all railways should be com- 
 pelled to adopt, because pauses are good for the health and 
 for looking about. At 5.15 w^e were at Aberdeen, and 
 were borne into the granite city in a blaze of Circuit 
 glory. 
 
 The only new thing that I observed along that dull 
 Strathmore was the little village of Dubton, near Mon- 
 trose. I was not in it, but it seemed to be an unusually 
 nice Scotch village. It is common for inlanders to go 
 to the seaside in summer ; and it seems to be as common 
 for seasiders to go in summer inland. Each wants change. 
 Dubton, I understand, is the summer retreat of the Mon- 
 trosers; and their need of respectable houses has made 
 this an unusually comfortable city of little villas. 
 
 The business at Aberdeen was finished yesterday by 
 three o'clock. Another unlicensed doctor had poisoned 
 a child by an absurd dose. This Circuit is the first 
 occasion on which we had to expound and apply the 
 
396 CIRCUIT fOURNE YS. 
 
 recently introduced punishment of " Penal Servitude " in 
 place of short transportations. I augur no good of it. 
 
 After getting out, Ivory, Archibald Davidson the Sheriff, 
 and I, spent two hours on the harbour and the pier. We 
 went over a very fine new ship, which was nearly finished, 
 and means, in four months, to be dashing aside the waves 
 of Australia. But, as in all British traders, the place for the 
 crew was disgracefully small, dark, and airless. We also 
 saw a ship on the stocks, which (though only about 1500 
 tons), is the largest sailing vessel ever built in Scotland. 
 It, and another ship beside it, were building in a yard 
 entirely covered over. 
 
 A part of the wreck of the Duchess of Sutherland, a large 
 passenger steamer, which was dashed to pieces upon the 
 point of the pier a few months ago, with great loss of life, 
 is still unremoved, and fixed in the sand. I was much 
 struck by the appearance of two gentlewomen, who were 
 leaning on the rail at the pierhead. One I could swear 
 had had her heart broken by that wreck, and was gazing 
 on the fragments amidst which some dear one had perished. 
 The other was standing aside, not obtruding, but visibly 
 watching the emotion of her friend. 
 
 We had a beastly Circuit dinner, on a sanded floor, and 
 came eagerly away this morning from the stinking Eoyal 
 Hotel, and breakfasting at Banchory, were here about 
 five — Ivory, his daughter, and daughter-in-law, being with 
 us. I have nothing more to say about beautiful Deeside. 
 But below Ballater it is not improving. Up to Banchory 
 it is polluted by a railway ; the wood is disappearing, and 
 agriculture is encroaching. Above Ballater it is unchanged, 
 and I hope unchangeable, and the whole eighteen miles 
 are glorious. The new house building for the Queen at 
 Balmoral may be better than the old one for residence, but 
 I don't anticipate that it will equal the old one in pictur- 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SEPTEMBER 1853. 397 
 
 esque beauty. The day was not very good, and yet not 
 very bad. It was excessively cold, with too much wind, 
 and some surly showers. But on the whole there was a 
 prevalence of bright light, and Lochnagar never shone in 
 greater splendour. 
 
 I think it my duty to record the unmatched merits of a 
 leg of mutton which we had to-day at dinner. It was a 
 leg which stands out even amidst all the legs of my long 
 and steadily muttonised life. It was glorious. A leg of 
 which the fat flats of England can have no idea, and which 
 even Wales, in its most favoured circumstances, could only 
 approach. It was a leg which told how it had strayed 
 among mountains from its lambhood to its death. It 
 spoke of winter straths and summer heights, of tender 
 heather, Alpine airs, cold springs, and that short sweet 
 srass which corries alone can cherish. These were the 
 mettle of its pasture. It left its savour on the palate, 
 like the savour of a good deed on the heart. And then 
 the room was so breezy, and our cloak devices so diverting, 
 and we were always heaping so much wood on the fire, 
 and had so much true wit with an old body of a waiter, 
 who said his name was Malcolm, and who was pleased by 
 being dubbed the king, and the brandy and hot-water 
 were so satisfactory, and the evening closed by such a 
 comfortable drowsiness, that, joined to the leg, it was a 
 worthy close of a worthy flay. 
 
 Perth, Thursday Night, 29th September 1853.— We left 
 Castleton this morning at nine, and were here about six. 
 A brilliant, though cold day. But a glorious district. 
 I think I have tried to describe it somewhere already. I 
 am not sure but that the descent on this side is as good as 
 the rise on the other. these large, heathery, silent 
 hills! Treeless, peakless, and nearly rockless! Great 
 
398 CIRCUl T JO URNE YS. 
 
 masses of solitary silence, broken only by high rills, tum- 
 bling into raging and sparkling torrents in the valley ! 
 And the gradual opening of the rich low country, ending 
 in the beauty of Perth ! Were I to see it yearly for a 
 thousand years, I cannot conceive that its impression 
 would ever fade. 
 
 EossiE OCHIL, Sunday Night, 2d October 1853. — In 
 Court all Friday and Saturday. And we must go back — 
 like the sow that hath been washed — to our mire to-mor- 
 row. Meanwhile Ivory and I came here from Perth to 
 breakfast this morning. 
 
 On Friday the sad and unexpected tidings of the death 
 of Lord Anderson reached us. He was to have opened 
 the Circuit at Glasgow to-morrow. His judicial life was 
 only about a single year long. A good lawyer, a good 
 judge, and a good and agreeable man, his sudden extinc- 
 tion makes one think. The few remaining old targets 
 must be struck soon. 
 
 I was never at this spot before. Ivory has it on lease. 
 The ten or twelve miles between it and Perth are all 
 beautiful, and pass through several very desirable places. 
 No sensible man would object to take either Moncreiffe, or 
 Kilgraston, or Freeland, or Eossie, or Invermay, even 
 under the necessity of living at them. This Rossie Ochil 
 is an SDolian residence on the eastern end of the Ochil 
 range. It is a small, sensible house, standing on the very 
 top of an almost treeless hill, in the midst of a wide 
 amphitheatre of much higher hills, the inner circle all 
 varied by many heights, and masses of wood, and farms, 
 and deeply engraved into countless valleys and gullies, 
 gurgling with countless bright little streams, all falling into 
 the May, which, after becoming a river, yields itself up to 
 the Earn, and thus goes, like thousands of other rivers, to 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SEPTEMBER 1853. 399 
 
 swell the majestic Tay. The elevation and openness of 
 this farmhouse kind of a spot secures its being smote by 
 every gale that blows, and therefore I should suppose that 
 it would seldom be too hot. But its views, and freedom, 
 and fresh air, make it a place that I am certain I would 
 like. 
 
 We had a long saunter through the low countries, and 
 found a profusion of clear and rocky waters, green old 
 turfy haughs, respectable trees, and good agriculture, with 
 decent children coming from the Sunday school, and old 
 hinds lying on the grass, playing with infants. But even 
 these were less interesting than Ivory's more early walk 
 and mine to the top of Kinteuchar Hill. What a prospect ! 
 Nothing inland could be nobler. But amidst all its splen- 
 dours, there was nothing on which my eye rested with 
 more pleasure than on the very humble farmhouse of Kin- 
 teuchar. It was formerly tenanted by a poor farmer 
 called Deas, whose son is now a judge, a man of fortune, 
 and of great worth, and born in that place. What is 
 more refreshing than the sight of the lowly cradles of 
 eminent men % What is so luxurious as the delight of a 
 poor father in the public elevation of an affectionate son % 
 
 And so I go to bed. But I must first add that from 
 Braemar to this the higher grounds have been richly 
 sprinkled with snow. 
 
 BoNALY, Wednesday Nighty 5th October 1853. — We came 
 from Eossie Ochil to Perth on the morning of Monday 
 the 3d, and were in Court till eight that night. Next 
 morning Ivory went to Glasgow to do what would have 
 been done by poor Lord Anderson. I stayed at Perth, and 
 got the business concluded by about one. We left Perth, 
 by Fife, at three, and were here by seven in the evening. 
 
 The cases throughout the whole Circuit were common- 
 
400 CIRCUIT JOURNEYS. 
 
 place. There were no fewer than twelve attacks by mas- 
 culine brutes on women and feminine children. Mary 
 Mackenzie, an incorrigible thief, was almost the handsomest 
 figure I ever saw at a criminal bar. Young, stately, 
 intelligent looking, and with a calm manner, she looked 
 like one who, under favourable circumstances, might have 
 shone on the stage, or in a high drawing-room; but 
 trained, as she had been, in iniquity, a steady eye, and a 
 resolute lip showed that defiance of society had become a 
 necessity of her position, and that little more was wanted 
 to make her an excellent devil. I wanted her counsel 
 to marry her, but the paltry fellow had not the courage. 
 
 I am confident that this new-fangled " Fenal Servitude " 
 won't do, even if strictly enforced. But it is plain by the 
 establishment of" Tickets of Leave,^' that Government means, 
 or will be tempted, to save expense by emptying the jails 
 upon the public, which will just be drenching us, instead 
 of our colonies, with tolerated villains. 
 
 I see that my Lord Justice-Clerk, John Hope, has been 
 lecturing the authorities on his Circuit from the Bench, on 
 the duties and the details of the stink removing precau 
 tions against cholera. No other judge has thought this 
 matter within his province. And clearly neither it is. 
 It recalls the days, now about forty-five years gone, when 
 the Circuit judgment-seat was regularly converted into a 
 platform from which Tory judges preached Toryism to the 
 Tory authorities beneath them. A discourse upon drains 
 from the Bench ! Instructions to inspectors of nuisances by 
 my lord the judge ! And the absurdity of the thing is, 
 that as the scavengers are not bound to obey the wig, and 
 know much more of their own business than the ermine 
 does, they hear the obtrusive address and inwardly laugh 
 at it. John, John ! when will you be modest % 
 
 I heard a Scotch proverb, from a witness at Perth, 
 
NORTH CIRCUIT— SEPTEMBER 1853. 401 
 
 which to me was new. A young woman had told her 
 mother that she was afraid to return to the mill, because 
 a man who worked there had said to her that he meant to 
 wrong her. The mother, a decent-like body, presumed 
 that, since he had announced it, he must have been in joke, 
 and advised her girl to go back to her work, saying, " It 's 
 no ai/e the cart that rumbles maisf that gangs first oiver thf 
 brae}' 
 
 2c 
 
SOUTH cmcuiT. 
 
 Spring 1854. 
 
 BoNALY, 22d April 1854. — A most contemptible Cir- 
 cuit; short, solitary, expeditionless. 
 
 It has been the South. Ivory was again fixed for 
 Dumfries, and I hoped to soothe myself under the 
 pensive silence of venerable and fading Jedburgh. But 
 a cold prevented me ; so Ivory, with his usual kind- 
 ness, took that too, and I went only to Ayr, where he 
 joined me. 
 
 I left this last Saturday the 15th, alo7ie. Yes, for the 
 second time alone. Which at least shows that I am not 
 deemed to be yet quite doited. It may be said to testify 
 my increasing moroseness, but my self-conceit doubts 
 even this, for I see no other symptom of it. The truth 
 is that she, who for above forty-three years has been, and 
 still is, my second and better self, is no longer able for 
 journeys beyond her own flowers, and that my onl}' 
 travellable daughter had occupations with stronger claims 
 at home. So I braved the perils of a pilgrimage to Ayr 
 by myself 
 
 I went to Thornton on the 15th, where I remained 
 till the evening of Monday the 17th, when I went to 
 Ayr. 
 
 We were in Court all the 1 8th and 1 9th, and a part of 
 the 20 th. 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1854. 403 
 
 The only interesting case was that of Alexander 
 Cunninghame, charged with murdering his wife, and con- 
 victed on the clearest possible circumstantial evidence. It 
 was a singularly atrocious proceeding. He was about 
 thirty-five, a strong, resolute-looking, dogged scoundrel. 
 She had been a well-conditioned, good woman, whom he 
 had been twice punished for assaulting, and who was 
 obliged, for the preservation of herself and her four chil- 
 dren, to cease living with him. She was twice or thrice 
 persuaded to go back, but was always obliged to fly 
 again, and they had been entirely parted for about a 
 year. During all this time the children were main- 
 tained solely by her labour. He often said that he would 
 like to kill her, and that he would shoot her as easily 
 as he would "that gull." An acquaintance to whom 
 he once disclosed this inclination, warned him against 
 "letting such thoughts enter his heart," as they would 
 certainly lead to his being hanged. No intimation of 
 these threats, or rather indications, was ever made to the 
 authorities, because they were believed to be mere sulky 
 words. 
 
 Though they were both in so small a place as Girvan, 
 he for nine months did not know where she was working. 
 At last he found this out, and next day borrowed a gun, 
 powder, and shot. That evening about seven — a calm, 
 dark evening last December — he got into the garden 
 behind the house she was working in, and saw her sitting, 
 with a candle, at her loom. She was not sitting quite 
 right for receiving the full effect of his shot. He there- 
 fore threw a little gravel against the window. This made 
 her look up. He fired, and she was dead. 
 
 Yet, though the evidence was quite clear, and the jury 
 said nothing of lenity, I expect an exertion to be made by 
 the idiots who have got into a habit of distinguishing 
 
404 CIR C UIT JO URNE YS, 
 
 themselves on such occasions, to save the life even of this 
 miscreant. They have luckily made their efforts some- 
 what ridiculous of late, not so much by the folly of their 
 reasons, as by their shameless fecundity in the creation 
 of false evidence. 
 
 The prisoner was very attentive to the proceedings, and 
 understood everything that was going on. But he got 
 into a very odd speculation. I observed him make a sign 
 to his counsel to come to him. The counsel did so, and 
 resumed his seat, with a look in which I thought I saw 
 some horror and a little mirth. I afterwards asked him 
 what his client had said. It was this, " If they hang me, 
 what will they do wi' ma claes ] " 
 
 This was our last criminal case. It was over about 
 two P.M. of Thursday the 20th. I left Ivory to try a civil 
 cause, and, passing by the back of the Court, found myself 
 on the seashore. It was one of the finest days of even 
 this unsurpassed spring. The beautiful bay of Ayr could 
 scarcely have been more beautiful. The advancing sea 
 was insinuating its clear waters irresistibly, yet gently, 
 into the innumerable little hollows and channels of the 
 dry sand. Few people were out, but plenty sea-fowls 
 playing on the beach, and in the air, and with the long 
 soft waves. Three white-skinned boys were bathing. No 
 ship, not even a boat, was visible. There was no sound, 
 except of an occasional hammer by a few lazy masons 
 who were pretending to be repairing the point of the pier, 
 the ring of whose implements only deepened the silence. 
 The picture of repose was completed on reaching the pier, 
 every projecting point of which was occupied by one or 
 two old bodies of rod fishers, who were watching the 
 bobbing of their corks as attentively as slumber would 
 allow. They caught nothing, and said that they would 
 not till it should rain, which it had not done for six 
 
SOUTH CIRCUIT— SPRING 1854. 
 
 405 
 
 weeks. So the very fishes were at rest too. It was all a 
 refreshing contrast to the heat and the crowd of that 
 horrid Court.^ 
 
 I went to Glasgow that evening, stayed there all night, 
 and came here yesterday forenoon. 
 
 \Nexi day Lord Cochhurn was seized with a serious illness, 
 and died on TFediiesday the 26th April, in his seventy-ffth 
 year.~\ 
 
 ^ Journals, vol. ii. 312. 
 
 
 Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty, 
 at the Edinburgh University Press. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abbotsford, 48, 51, 200. 
 
 Abercromby, Lord, 3, 69. 
 
 Aberrleen, 16, 43-46, 139-141, 15U-152, 
 222-224, 259, 265, 268, 305, 320, 
 335, 353, 358, 360, 373, 374, 378, 
 395 ; harbour of, 18 ; The Enter- 
 tainment at, 329. 
 
 Aberdeenshire, improvements in, 16 ; 
 castles, 360. 
 
 Abergeldie, 142, 308. 
 
 Abernethy, Tower of, 234. 
 
 Aberuchill, 76. 
 
 Aboyne, 142, 306, 307. 
 
 Adam Grahame, a novel, 384. 
 
 Airthrie, 3, 69. 
 
 Aitken, Mr., Clerk of Court, 354. 
 
 Ale, the river, 52. 
 
 Alemoor, Lord, 52. 
 
 Alison, Archibald, Sheriti. 4, 9, 147. 
 
 Alison, Mrs., 33. 
 
 Allanton, 240, 241. 
 
 Alloa, 17, 18. 
 
 Alness, Bridge of, 352. 
 
 Altnagach Inn, 352. 
 
 Altuahara, 353. 
 
 Altyre, 263, 357, 377, 378. 
 
 Amulree, 75. 
 
 Anderson, Dr. R. Rowand, 273 note. 
 
 Anderson, Lord, 399. 
 
 Anderson's Guide to the Highlands^ 
 etc., 107, 113, 136. 
 
 Antoinette, Marie, 308. 
 
 Appin, S3, 270, 275, 281, 282. 
 
 Arbroath, 19, 45, 222, 226, 26."^ 
 266, 304, 383; Cathedral, 18, 95, 
 250. 
 
 Ardencaple, 32. 
 
 Ardgour, 106. 
 
 Ardguy (Ardgye), 352, 353. 
 
 Ardkinglas, 29, 348. 
 
 Ardoch, 75. 
 
 Ardpatrick, 196, 198. 
 
 Ardrishaig, 200. 
 
 Ardrossan, 166, 168, 173-175, 192. 
 
 Ardshiel, 295. 
 
 Ardtornish, 83. 
 
 Argyle family, 81. 
 
 Argyleshire, 80, 81, 86, 171, 284, 318 ; 
 
 glens, 294 ; hills, 192 ; lochs of, 
 
 30 ; men as jury, 291. 
 Arkley, Mr., of Dunninald, 235. 
 Arndilly, 139. 
 Amiston, 49. 
 Arcs, 83. 
 
 Aross, the Lords, 109 note. 
 Arran, 28, 106, 122, 167, 174, 175, 
 
 194, 195, 244. 
 Arrochar, 186. 
 Arthur Seat, 391, 393. 
 Ary, the river, 27. 
 Athole, 158, 160, 313, 314 ; Duke of, 
 
 310. 
 Auchanault, 130. 
 Auchendyne, 143. 
 Auchnasheen, 130, 135. 
 Aviemore, 10-12, 39, 77, 105, 158, 
 
 259, 337, 353. 
 Awe, the river, 77, 124, 288. 
 Awe, Loch. See Loch Awe. 
 Ayr, 192, 241, 243, 245, 247, 256, 
 
 269, 372, 391, 393, 402. 
 Ayrshire, 106, 171. 
 
408 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Babbage, 28. 
 
 Bacon, 256. 
 
 Baillie, Charles, Advocate-Depute, 
 
 263, 265, 268. 
 Ballachulish, 105, 108, 206, 270, 274- 
 
 276, 278-280, 294, 344, 345. 
 Ballater, 141, 142, 306, 360, 396. 
 Balloch, 364. 
 
 Balmoral, 142, 360, 361, 396. 
 Banchory. 141, 142, 305, 306, 396. 
 Barbeth, 248. 
 Barmore, 201. 
 Barr, 4, 23, 32, 33. 
 Barskimming, 54. 
 Beatock, 54, b^^ 57. 
 Beauly Priory, 137. 
 Bell, Benjamin, 280, 282, 287. 
 Bell, Sir Charles, 185. 
 Bell, Montgomery, 99. 
 Bell, Professor George Joseph, 203. 
 Bell, Robert, Procurator to the 
 
 Church, 87. 
 Benachie, 375, 378. 
 Ben Cruachan, 76, 77, 83, 172, 285, 
 
 288. 
 Ben Eaye, 135. 
 Ben Lair, 132, 134. 
 Ben Lawers, 76, 77, 172, 302, 304, 344. 
 Ben Ledi, 172, 
 
 Ben Lomond, 31, 172, 185, 319. 
 Ben Loyal, 353. 
 Ben More, Perthshire, 76, 172, 274. 
 
 304. 
 Ben Nevis, 172. 
 Ben Oss, 185. 
 Ben Slarive, 285. 
 Ben Varogen, 194. 
 Ben Voirlich, 76. 
 Ben Wyvis, 155. 
 Bervie, 265. 
 Birnam, 379, 380. 
 Black Mount, 107, 274. 
 Blackshiels, 322. 
 Blaikie, Provost, Aberdeen, 223. 
 Blair, Sir David, 243. 
 Blair, 36, 39, 158-160, 212, 312, 313 ; 
 
 the Place of, 158. 
 
 Blairadam, 33. 
 
 Blairquhan, 241, 243. 
 
 Bog Roy, 135. 
 
 Boldercan, 273. 
 
 Bonaly, 1, 32, 46, 67, 69, 101, 163, 
 
 176, 188, 203, 234, 255, 267, 295, 
 
 297, 317, 318, 341, 348, 349, 361, 
 
 365-367, 369, 371, 373, 380, 383, 
 
 385, 389, 393, 399, 402. 
 Borthwickbrae, 51, 95, 297. 
 Boswell, his Letter to Lord Braxfield, 
 
 322. 
 Bowers, John, 93. 
 Bowhill, 55. 
 Bowling Bay, 364. 
 
 Boyle, Lord President, 69, 73, 243. 269. 
 Boyle, Archibald, 244. 
 Boyle, Mary, 207. 
 Brackland, Falls of, 299. 
 Braemar, 139, 142, 314, 399 : Castle, 
 
 142, 143, 306. 
 Branxholm, 52. 
 Braxfield, Lord, 322 note, 328. 
 Breadalbane, Marquis of, 184, 275, 
 
 289. 
 Brechin, 150. 
 Brenda, the steamer, 79. 
 Brewster, Sir David, 234. 
 Bridge of Earn, 233. 
 Brig of Bracklin, 343. 
 Broadford, 115, 116, 127. 
 Brodick, 168, 174 ; Castle, 170 ; Inn, 
 
 169, 170, 172 ; described, 178. 
 Broomhall, 357. 
 Brotherton, 265, 266. 
 Brougham, Lord Chancellor, 6, 7, 
 
 33, 53 ; his Political Philosophy 
 
 102. 
 Brougham Hall, 332. 
 Broughty, 373. 
 Brown, Dr., Glasgow, 269. 
 Bruar Falls, 212, 338. 
 Bruce's Castle, 195. 
 Buachaille-Etives (Beg and More), 
 
 274, 285. 
 Buccleuch, Duke of, 49, 96, 273. 
 Buckingham, Duke of, 275. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 409 
 
 Bunaw, 283, 285 ; Iron Company, 89- 
 
 90. 
 Burke's Correspondence, 242, 256. 
 Burn, architect, 38, 41, 100, 233, 243. 
 Burnhouse. See Thomson. 
 Burns, 58, 240. 
 Burntisland, 334, 373. 
 Bute, 194, 195, 318 ; Kyles of, 196. 
 Byerley, Miss, 240. 
 
 Cairketton, 172. 
 
 Cairndow, 27, 29, 31, 33, 318. 
 
 Cairngorms, 11, 77, 337, 353. 
 
 Caledonian Canal, 352. 
 
 Callander, 84, 299, 300, 343. 
 
 Callart, 277. 
 
 Cally, 63, 250. 
 
 Cameron, Sir Duncan, 277. 
 
 Cameron of Barcaldine, 283. 
 
 Cameron, Angus, 107. 
 
 Campbell, architect, 223. 
 
 Campbell of Cawdor, 261. 
 
 Campbell, James, of Craigie, 54, 332 
 
 Campbell, Miss, 216. 
 
 Campbell, Mrs., 216. 
 
 Campbell, Thomas, 33. 
 
 Campbells of Kilberry, 197. 
 
 Canna, 129. 
 
 Carr, Bridge of, 12, 13, 213. 
 
 Carsphairn, 248. 
 
 Carytes, manufactory of, 173. 
 
 Cassillis family, 246. 
 
 Castle Forbes, 375. 
 
 Castle Lachlan, 86. 
 
 Castle Stalker, 280, 282. 
 
 Castle Street, Aberdeen, cross in, 
 
 140 ; houses of, 153 ; statue in, 223. 
 Castleton, Braemar, 139, 142, 143. 
 
 305-307, 358, 361, 395, 397. 
 Cawdor, 259 ; Castle, 216. 
 Christie, Sir Archibald, 270, 271. 
 Christkirk, 255. 
 
 Circuit dinners, 4 ; procession, 4. 
 Circuit, Glasgow (1838), 8; (1841), 
 
 91 ; (1844), 207 ; (1846), 317 ; (1850), 
 
 362 ; (1853), 387. 
 
 Circuit, North (1838), 10 ; (1839), 36 ; 
 (1841), 104 ; (1842), 149 ; (Spring 
 1844), 211 ; (1845), 259 ; (1846), 
 299; (1848), 334; (1849), 351; 
 (1852), 373 ; (1853), 395. 
 
 Circuit, South (1839), 48 ; (1841), 93 ; 
 (1844), 238 ; (1846), 297 ; (1847), 
 320; (1850), 367; (1851), 371; 
 (1853), 389 ; (1854), 402. 
 
 Circuit, West (1837), 3 ; (1838), 23 ; 
 (Spring 1840), 69 ; (Autumn 1840), 
 75; (1842), 166; (Spring 1843), 
 179 ; (Autumn 1843), 192 ; (1845), 
 270; (1847), 318; (1848). 343; 
 (1850), 364; (1851), 368; (1852), 
 385. 
 
 Claddich, 289. 
 
 Clarendon compared with Brougham, 
 12. 
 
 Clark, Andrew, Advocate-Depute, 
 394. 
 
 Clathick, 76. 
 
 Clerkington. See Hepburn. 
 
 Closeburn School, 101. 
 
 Cluany, 111. 
 
 Cluny, The, 142, 307. 
 
 Clyde, 23, 89, 126, 163, 168. 192, 239 ; 
 Firth of, 171, 175, 215. 
 
 Cockburn, Lord, death of, 405. 
 
 Cocklmrn, Mrs., 4, 23, 24, 27, 48, 55, 
 71, 75, 93, 99, 101, 104, 117, 169, 
 238, 240, 299, 318, 319, 368, 369, 
 371. 
 
 Cockburn, Elizabeth, 4, 48, 56, 75, 
 91, 167, 169, 171, 172, 179, 192, 
 211, 238, 240, 259, 270, 282, 287, 
 297, 299, 316, 319, 332, 334, 
 349. 
 
 Cockburn, Francis, 56, 75, 104, 117, 
 130, 167, 169, 270, 280, 282, 287, 
 292. 
 
 Cockburn, George, 334, 338, 341, 
 343, 371. 
 
 Cockburn, Graham, 4, 10, 15. 
 
 Cockburn, Henry, 23. 
 
 Cockburn, Jane, 10, 23, 27, 48 69, 
 75, 104, 149,167,173. 
 
410 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 Cockburn, Johanna, 238, 240, 297, 
 
 343, 345, 351, 368, 371, 391, 395. 
 Cockburn, Montague, 101. 
 Cockburn, Robert, 50. 
 Combe, George, his Notes on America , 
 
 147. 
 Commons, House of, S. 
 Comrie, 75 ; Church, 344 ; House, 
 
 76, 299, 301, 343. 
 Connell, Professor, 232. 
 Contin, 136. 
 Cooper, Mr., 356. 
 Cooper's Pathfinder, 90. 
 Corbet, Robert, 330. 
 Corry, Skye, 116, 117. 
 CorryaiTick, 11. 
 Corryvreckan, 246. 
 Corstorphine Church, 217. 
 Coruisk, 116, 117, 120, 122-125, 127, 
 
 129, 133, 134. 
 Court of Justiciary, 207. 
 Cowane, John, 167. 
 Craggie, 259. 
 
 Craig, Lord, 53, 54, 323, 328. 
 Craig. See Gordon. 
 Craig Inn, 130. 
 Craighall, 145. 
 
 Craigie House, 243, 331, 332, 391. 
 Craigphadrick, 336. 
 Crailing, 53. 
 Crathes, Castle of, 1 42. 
 Craufurd, James, 99. 
 Crawford, 100. 
 Creagan, 283. 
 Cree, the river, 242. 
 Creetown, 241. 
 Crieff, 75. 
 
 Cromarty, 42 ; jail, 41 . 
 Cromarty family, 137. 
 Crombie, Bailie, 140. 
 Cuillin Hills, 105, 116, 120-122, 125, 
 
 129, 132. 
 Cullen, Lord, 87, 88. 
 Cumbernauld, 167. 
 Gumming, Sir William, 378. 
 Cumpston, 60, 62, 63, 65, 238, 244, 
 
 249, 253, 255, 326, 330, 332. 
 
 Cunningham, Allan, his Life of Sir 
 
 D. Wilkie, 190. 
 Cunningham, Mr. (Thornton), 371. 
 Cunninghame, Alexander, 403. 
 Cunninghame, Mrs., 386. 
 Cupar, 234, 334, 383. 
 Cupar-Angus, 149, 304, 361. 
 
 Dalbeattie, 60. 
 
 Dalchonzie, 76. 
 
 Dalcross, 216. 
 
 Dalhousie, 48. 
 
 Dalmally, 75-77, 104, 105, 180, 183, 
 185, 288, 289, 318. 
 
 Dalmellington, 248, 256, 332. 
 
 Dalnacardoch, 321. 
 
 Dalveen, Pass of, 67. 
 
 Dalvey, 356, 377. 
 
 Dalwhinnie, 11, 215, 268, 321, 352, 
 354. 
 
 Davidson, Rev. Mr., 45. 
 
 Davidson, Archibald (Sheriff), Advo- 
 cate-Depute, 87, 197, 202, 305, 378, 
 396. 
 
 Davidson of Cantray, 259, 261. 
 
 Davidson, Henry, 170, 173, 174, 193, 
 194, 197. 
 
 Deas, Lord, 399. 
 
 Dee, Kirkcudbright, 62, 65. 
 
 Dee, Aberdeen, 42, 305, 376. 
 
 Dee, Bridge of, 149. 
 
 Deeside, 305, 308. 
 
 Demyat Hill, 3, 172. 
 
 Den Finella, 266. 
 
 Dickens's Master Humphrefs Clock, 
 102 ; Barnaby Rudge, 165. 
 
 Dingwall, 130, 136, 137. 
 
 Dirk Hatteraick's Cave, 253. 
 
 Divie, the, 263. 
 
 Don, 375, 376. 
 
 Doonholra, 371. 
 
 Doune of Rothiemurchus, 40. 
 
 Drum, 360. 
 
 Drumlanrig, 58, 100, 241. 
 
 Drummond Castle, 76. 
 
 Drumochter, 39, 212. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 411 
 
 Dryburgh, 51. 
 
 Dryhope, 56. 
 
 Dubton, 395. 
 
 Duchess of Sutherland, wreck of the, 
 396. 
 
 Diilsie, Bridge of, 323. 
 
 Dumbarton, 23, 32, 292. 
 
 Dumfries, 58, 60, 93, 98, 99, 238, 239, 
 241, 250, 269, 297, 820, 321, 329, 
 330, 332, 339. 367, 368, 372, 373, 
 390, 402; Asylum, 57, 99; kirk- 
 yard, 240. 
 
 Dun, Captain, 253, 256. 
 
 Dunaquaicli, 181, 182. 
 
 Dunblane Cathedral, 272. 
 
 Dundas, Sir David, Solicitor-General , 
 75, 299, 343. 
 
 Dundas, George, 371, 389. 
 
 Dundas, Henry, Home Secretary, 
 49, 50. 
 
 Dundas, Captain H., 292. 
 
 Dundas, John, 149. 
 
 Dundas, Robert, Lord Advocate, 49. 
 
 Dundee, 29, 163, 164, 226, 303, 334, 
 373, 383. 
 
 Dundrennan Abbey, 62, 249, 250. 
 
 Dunfermline, 383. 
 
 Dunira, 75, 76, 104, 106, 166, 273, 
 343. 
 
 Dunkeld, 10, 11, 36, 39, 160-163, 
 211, 212, 301, 303, 304, 314, 320. 
 351, 379. 
 
 Dunnottar, 225. 
 
 Dunolly, 78. 
 
 Dunoon, 89, 192, 197, 202, 291, 292. 
 
 Dimrobin, 353. 
 
 DunstaflFnage, 84, 347. 
 
 Dupplin, 266, 267. 
 
 Durisdeer, 101. 
 
 Durness, 353. 
 
 Earn, 75, 398. 
 Easdale, Dr., Perth, 161. 
 Ecclefechan, 97, 98. 
 Edinburgh, 10, 19, 46, 48, 71, 75, 86, 
 91, 93, 101, 107, 140, 146, 163, 166, 
 
 179, 192, 207, 211, 235, 238, 268, 
 297, 327, 332, 339, 340, 343, 354, 
 362, 367, 368, 387 ; cotton-spinners 
 trial at, S note. 
 
 Edinburgh Revieiv, 190, 237, 257. 
 268, 342, 384; article by Alison 
 in, 9 ; article by Lord Brougham 
 in, 12. 
 
 Eglinton, Earl of, 174. 
 
 Eigg, 122, 129. 
 
 Elgin, Sheriff of, 17. 
 
 Elgin, 22, 42, 43, 139, 160, 219, 220, 
 1 335, 357; Cathedral, 15, 43, 139, 
 155, 163, 250, 264. 
 
 Elliot, 338. 
 
 Elmslie, Mrs., 224. 
 
 Erskine Manse, 89, 91. 
 
 Esk, 48. 
 
 Eskgrove, Lord, 53, 327-330. 
 
 Estate Bill, 71. 
 
 Ettrick, 55. 
 
 Europe, Sovereigns of, 361 
 
 Fairlie, 168. 
 
 Fairport, his description of Arbroath, 
 
 19. 
 Falkirk, 166, 270, 299. 
 Fancoat, Charles, 381. 
 Fascally, 38, 310, 314. 
 Fasnacloich, 275, 279, 280, 283, 284, 
 
 287. 
 Fell, Helen, 150. 
 Fergusson, Sir James, of Kilkerran, 
 
 15. 
 Fergusson, James, Clerk of Session. 
 
 330. 
 Fergusson, Professor, 227, 230. 
 Fern Islands, 29. 
 Fife, 383. 
 Fife, Lord, 220. 
 Findhorn, 112, 217, 263, 320, 323, 
 
 357, 376. 
 Fingal's Cave, 79. 
 Firkin, 24. 
 Florence, 160. 
 Fochabers, 43, 216, 219, 222, 264, 
 
 357. 
 
412 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Forbes, Lord, 375. 
 
 Forbes, Charles, banker, 91. 
 
 Foreman, a novel, 268. 
 
 Forest Lodge, 312. 
 
 Forfar, 304, 395. 
 
 Forfarshire, 383. 
 
 Forres, 42, 138, 139, 219, 262, 320, 
 
 337, 377. 
 Fort Augustus, 11, 111. 
 Fort George, 155. 
 Fort William, 108, 111, 206, 352, 
 
 354. 
 Forth, Firth of, 29, 215, 237. 
 'Forty-Five, The, 38. 
 Fountainhall, 1. 
 Fraser, Col. William, of Laggors, 
 
 138, 219. 
 Fraser, Mr., 377. 
 Fraser of Farraline, 331. 
 Frasers at Laggan, 157, 214. 
 Freeburn, 215. 
 Freeland, 398. 
 French Revolution, 54. 
 Fullerton, Elphy, 351, 364, 
 Fullerton, Mary, 211, 221, 351. 
 Fullerton family, 292, 293. 
 
 Gala, 48, 50, 51, 93. 
 
 Galashiels, 51, 390. 
 
 Galloway, 58. 
 
 Gallowgate, 303. 
 
 Garioch, 376, 383. 
 
 Garscube, 33, 188. 
 
 Garve, 131, 135. 
 
 Gatehouse, 241, 
 
 Gawdie, 375, 
 
 Geddes, Bishop, 233, 
 
 Geddes, John, 221. 
 
 Gelston Castle, 60, 62, 241, 
 
 George iv. in Edinburgh, 1822, 33. 
 
 Gibbon, his style, 237. 
 
 Girvan, 243, 403. 
 
 Glamis, 18, 149, 150 ; Castle of, 150, 
 
 Glasgow, 4, 32, 69, 72, 75, 89, 146, 
 147, 164, 173, 174, 188, 192, 202, 
 269, 292, 295, 319, 329, 348, 364, 
 
 366, 368, 369, 387, 405 ; Cathedral, 
 163 ; College, 164 ; Green, 239. 
 
 Glenarbuck, 32, 
 
 Glenbeg, 308, 309. 
 
 Glen Cluny, 308. 
 
 Glencoe, 105, 106, 115, 206, 274, 
 
 Glencroe, 26, 38, 180, 318. 
 
 Glendinning, Mrs., 60, 100, 111, 
 
 Glendochart, 130, 135. 
 
 Glenfalloch, 24, 185, 206, 318, 319. 
 
 Glenfeochan, 89. 
 
 Glenfinnart, 292, 293. 
 
 Glengarry, 109. 
 
 Glenken Hills, 250. 
 
 Glenlyon, Lord, 159. 
 
 Glen Messan, 294. 
 
 Glenmoriston, 111, 112. 
 
 Glenrosie, Arran, 169, 173. 
 
 Glen Sannox, Arran, 172, 173. 
 
 Glen Sligachan, 127. 
 
 Glenshee, Spittal of, 1 14, 309. 
 
 Glen Tilt, 310-313. 
 
 Glen Truim, 215. 
 
 Glenure, 282, 284. 
 
 Goatfell, 168, 170, 172, 194. 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 257. 
 
 Golspie, 353. 
 
 Goodman's History, 67. 
 
 Goodrich, 255. 
 
 Gordon Castle, 43, 15'3, 
 
 Gordon, Dr., 13, 213, 
 
 Gordon, Duke of, 22, 223. 
 
 Gordon, Duchess of, 321. 
 
 Gordon, Edward, Advocate-Depute, 
 386. 
 
 Gordon, James, of Craig, 330, 378. 
 
 Gordon, Provost, 253, 
 
 Gordon, of Culvennan, 331. 
 
 Gourock, 89. 
 
 Govan, 91. 
 
 Graham, Eobert, of Lyndoch, 28, 
 
 Grandtully Castle, 303. 
 
 Grantly Manor ^ a novel, 342. 
 
 Granton, 334, 373. 
 
 Grattan's Life of his Father, 67. 
 
 Gray, Professor, 262. 
 
 Great Ross, 251. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 413 
 
 Greenock, 89, 192, 292. 
 Gutlirie, Rev. Dr., 187. 
 
 Haggart, David, 339. 
 
 Haldane, Principal, 232, 234, 
 
 Hamilton, Sir William, 316. 
 
 Hamilton, Captain, his Cyril Thorn- 
 ton, 316. 
 
 Hamilton, 170. 
 
 Hangingshaw, 55. 
 
 Hawick, 95, 390. 
 
 Hawthornden, 145. 
 
 Hebrides, 80. 
 
 Helensburgh, 89. 
 
 Henderland, House of, 15. 
 
 Henderland, Lord, 55. 
 
 Hepburn of Clerkington, 48, 49. 
 
 Heriot House, 48. 
 
 Hermand, Lord, 42, 73, 87, 88, 98, 
 329. 
 
 High School, Edinburgh. 243. 
 
 Hill, Principal George, 227. 
 
 Hoddam Castle, 97. 
 
 Holme. See Rose. 
 
 Holytown. 322. 
 
 Hope, John, Lord Justice-Clerk, 
 210, 296, 400. 
 
 Hope, Charles, 321, 324. 
 
 Horner, Leonard, 385. 
 
 Horner, Mrs., 385. 
 
 Horner, Joanna, 385. 
 
 Houston, George, 203. 
 
 Hoy, James, 156. 
 
 Hunter, cotton-spinner, 8 note, 9 
 note. 
 
 Huntly, 13, 42, 139, 222. 
 
 INCHNADAMPH, 352, 353. 
 
 Innes, Cosmo, 27, 46, 70, 259. 263, 
 
 357. 
 Inveraray, 4, 26, 69, 75, 77, 87, 89, 
 
 167. 174, 179, 181-183, 198, 201, 
 
 255, 270, 289, 291, 318, 321, 347, 
 
 348, 365. 
 Invercauld, 141, 142, 306. 
 
 Invergarry Castle, 109. 
 
 Invermay, 398. 
 
 Invermoriston, 111 ; Inn, 108. 
 
 Inverness, 10-12, 38, 41, 42, 135, 
 136, 138, 139, 154, 157, 213-215, 
 239, 261, 268, 321, 335, 337, 351, 
 352, 354, 376, 383 ; Madras College 
 of, 336. 
 
 Inveroran, 105. 
 
 Invershin, 352. 
 
 Inveruglas, 292. 
 
 luverury, 139. 
 
 lona, 79, 80, 346. 
 
 Ionian Islands, 3. 
 
 Ireland, 80, 105. 
 
 Irvine, A. Forbes, 263, 2(i5, 360. 
 
 Irvine, the river, 244. 
 
 Islay, 197. 
 
 Ivory, Lord, 46, 275, 278, 284, 362, 
 363, 369, 372, 374, 383, 386, 387, 
 395, 398, 402. 
 
 Jackson, Professor, 227, 232. 
 Jameson, Mrs., Brodick, 178. 
 Jean Town, Ross-shire, 128-130, 
 
 136. 
 Jed, 239, 371, 389. 
 Jedburgh, 43, 48, 52, 92, 94, 239, 
 
 269, 297, 328, 333, 367, 368, 389, 
 
 390, 402 ; Abbey, 272. 
 Jeffrey, Lord, 27, 48, 103, 256, 331, 
 
 339, 340. 
 Jethart, 371. 
 Jew Exile, 109 note. 
 Johnson, Dr. S., 257. 
 Johnstone, 375. 
 
 Kean, 195. 
 Keay, James, 37. 
 Keay, Mrs., 36. 
 Keir, Patrick Small, 10. 
 Kelso, 18, 43, 239. 
 Kenmore, 301, 303. 
 Kenmnre, Lord, 256. 
 
414 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Kenmure, ^'o ; Castle of, 65. 
 Kennedy, John, of Underwood, 391. 
 Kennedy, John, jnn., 392. 
 Kennedy, Robert, 245, 39], 392. 
 Keppoch family, 109 note. 
 Kilberry, 199. 
 Kilchurn, 183, 185, 195, 288 ; Castle, 
 
 77. 
 Kllgraston, 398. 
 Kilkerran, 278. 
 KlUiecranlde, 11, 38, 268. 
 Killin, 301, 303. 
 Kilmarnock, 371. 
 Kilmartin, 84, 85. 
 Kilmorack, 136. 
 Kilmiin, 88, 89, 291, 292, 294. 
 Kilpatrick, 23, 180. 
 Kilravock, 215, 217-219, 281. 
 Kindrogan, 10, 144, 145, 308, 310 ; 
 
 described, 11. 
 Kinfanns, 267, 341. 
 Kingarth, 194. 
 
 King's College, Aberdeen, 45, 153. 
 King's House, 105, 107, 205, 270, 
 
 273, 286, 344. 
 Kingussie, 39, 160, 212, 214, 215. 
 Kinlochewe, 129, 130, 135. 
 Kinrara, 321. 
 
 Kinross, 10, 39, 316 ; jail of, 18. 
 Kinross-shire, 211, 316; Sheriff of, 
 
 17. 
 Kinteuchar Hill, 399. 
 Kinloch Leven, 275-277. 
 Kinnoul Hill, 161, 341. 
 Kirkcaldy, 383. 
 Kirkcudbright, 60, 62, 65, 250, 251, 
 
 253-255. 
 Kirklands, 48, 51, 52, 94, 371, 385. 
 Kirkpatrick, John, 3. 
 Kirkwall, 352. 
 Knockomie, 262, 264, 335, 336, 354, 
 
 356, 357, 376, 378. 
 Kyle Akin, 128. 
 Kyle Rhea, 114, 120. 
 Kylesku, 353. 
 
 Lachlan. See Castle Lachlan. 
 
 Laggors. See Fraser. 
 
 Lairg, 353. 
 
 Lamlash, 174. 
 
 Langholm, 93, 97, 297. 
 
 Langholm Lodge, 96. 
 
 Largs, 192. 
 
 Lauder, Sir Thomas Dick, 3, 13, 264, 
 
 289, 336. 
 Lauder, Miss Susan, 373, 383. 
 Leeds, Duke of, 310. 
 Leith, 181. 
 
 Lennox the ferryman, 292. 
 Letterfinlay, 109. 
 Leven, the river, 180, 278, 279. 
 Lewis, 13. 
 Leys, 215. 
 
 Lhanbryde, 160, 161. 
 Lincluden, 240, 250. 
 Linlithgow Palace, 69. 
 Lithgow, 155. 
 Little Ross, island of, 251. 
 Lloyd, Mr., 27. 
 Lloyd, Mrs., 28, 
 Lochaber, 275. 
 Loch Alemoor, 52. 
 Loch Alsh, 128, 129. 
 Loch Awe, 77, 181, 183, 289, 347. 
 Loch Carron, 128, 129. 
 Loch Cluany, 113. 
 Loch Cree, 242, 248. 
 Loch Creran, 281, 283. 
 Loch Doon, 248. 
 Loch Duich, 113, 114, 128. 
 Loch Earn, 299. 
 
 Lochearnhead, 75, 76, 104, 274, 343. 
 Loch Eck, 88, 202, 292. 
 Loch Eishart, 129. 
 Loch Eriboll, 353. 
 Loch Etive, 78, 282-284, 286, 288, 
 
 347. 
 Loch Fad, 195, 206. 
 Loch Follart, 129. 
 Loch Fyne, 26, 28-30, 81, 86, 171, 
 
 200, 290, 295. 
 Loch Garry, 39. 
 Lochgilphead, 77, 79, 86, 201. 
 Loch Hope, 353. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 415 
 
 Loch Inver, 352. 
 
 LocH Katrine, 133, 299, 300. 
 
 Loch Leven, Kinloch, 106, 275, 276, 
 
 344. 
 Lochleveu Castle, Kinross, 315. 
 Loch Linnhe, 109. 
 Loch Lomond, 23, 31, 32, 131, 133, 
 
 179, 181, 183, 185, 186, 215, 291, 
 
 300, 364. 
 Loch Long, 26, 32. 
 Loch Lubnaig, 299, 300, 343. 
 Lochniabeu, 96, 98. 
 Loch Maree, 129-131, 134, 135, 183. 
 Loch Melfort, 89. 
 Loch Ness, 109, 142, 305. 
 Loch Restal, 31. 
 Loch Scavaig, 118, 121, 126. 
 Loch Shin, 353. 
 
 Loch Slapin, 118, 119, 122, 126. 
 Loch Snizort, 129. 
 Loch Tarbert, 197, 198, 295. 
 Loch Tay, 302. 
 Loch Torridon, 135. 
 Loch Treig, 352. 
 Loch Tulla, 106, 107. 
 Lochwinnoch, 4, 23, 174. 
 Lockerbie, 297. 
 Lockhart's Life of Scott, 12. 
 Lockhart, John, 326. 
 Logan, A, S., of Stirling, 331, 381, 
 
 382. 
 Logie, 263. 
 Longtown, 97, 98. 
 Lothian, Marquis of, 272 note. 
 Lowes, the, 56. 
 Lude, 158, 311. 
 Luib, 104. 
 
 Lushington, Professor, 33. 
 Luss, 32, 37, 318, 348, 368; church 
 
 of, 23. 
 Lyell, Sir Charles : his Second Visit 
 
 to the United States, 361. 
 Lyndoch. See Graham. 
 Lyiieham, Thomas, 381. 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, his Life of Bo/r- 
 rlre, 237. 
 
 Macbean, Mr., 13, 213, 240, 253. 
 
 Macbean, Rosa, 69, 91. 
 
 Macbride, James, 350. 
 
 M^Cormick, Edward, 331. 
 
 M'Cormick, Samuel, 269. 
 
 MacCulloch, 120, 121, 123-125, 132, 
 194, 287 note. 
 
 Macdonald, Lord, 355. 
 
 M 'Donald, Colonel, of Glengarry, 
 109 note. 
 
 M 'Donald of Stalfa, 15. 
 
 Macdowall, William, of Barr, 71. 
 
 Macdowali, Lieut. -Col. Laurence, 174. 
 
 Macfarlane, Mary, 190. 
 
 Macintosh of Daviot, 261. 
 
 Macintosh of Geddes, 261. 
 
 Mackenzie, Henry, 43, 218. 
 
 Mackenzie, Lord, 167, 174, 177, 317, 
 323. 
 
 Mackenzie, Mary, 400. 
 
 Mackenzie, Sir Francis, of Gairloch, 
 137. 
 
 Mackenzie of Scatwell, 136. 
 
 Mackinnon, Mr., 116, 117, 125. 
 
 Mackinnon, Mrs., 339. 
 
 M'Lean, Malcolm, 13. 
 
 Macleod of Dalvey, 356. 
 
 M'Luskie, John, 350. 
 
 Macmillan, Mr., 127. 
 
 Macnabs, 302. 
 I Macpherson, Major, 215. 
 j Macpherson, Miss, 377. 
 j Madras College, St. Andrews, 229. 
 I Madras Colleges, origin of, 336. 
 i Maitland, Edward, 62, 336, 342, 361. 
 ' Maitland, Eliza, 4, 36, 173. 
 
 Maitland, George, Solicitor-General, 
 87, 166, 167, 169, 173, 240, 241, 
 243, 247, 250-253. 
 
 Maitland, Graham, 93, 104, 179, 187, 
 259. 
 
 Maitland, James, 169, 253. 
 
 Maitland, Thomas, 1, 249. 
 
 Maitland, Mrs., 71, 169. 
 
 Malcolm of Poltalloch, 201. 
 
 Malcolm, Dr., 343. 
 
 Marischal College, 45, 140, 153. 
 
416 
 
 JNDEX. 
 
 Mar Lodge, 310. 
 
 Mary Queen of Scots, 315. 
 
 Maxwell of Terregles, 250. 
 
 Maxwelltown, 239. 
 
 May, the river, 267. 398. 
 
 Maybole, 246. 
 
 Meadowbank, Lord, the first, 183. 
 
 Meadowbank, Lord, the second, 33, 
 57, 68, 69, 75, 89, 93, 179, 188. 
 
 Medwyn, Lord, 9, 91, 207, 338. 
 
 Meggat Bridge, 56. 
 
 Melrose, 43, 61, 93, 98, 239, 389, 
 390 ; Abbey, 61, 93, 273. 
 
 Melville, 49. 
 
 Midcalder, 322. 
 
 Middleton Inn, 49 ; Moor, 48, 93. 
 
 Midlothian, 49, 102, 374. 
 
 Milne, Mrs., Aberdeen, 305. 
 
 Milne, Provost, of Perth, 44. 
 
 Milne, David, Advocate-Depute, 181. 
 
 Minard, 28, 86, 87. 
 
 Minnick, 242. 
 
 Minnyhive, 66. 
 
 Moffat, 56, 57, 238. 
 
 MoncreifF, Lord, 3. 4, 16, 17, 19, 44, 
 47, 68, 69, 73, 138, 139, 145, 150, 
 154, 164, 179, 211, 215, 210, 221, 
 234, 238, 261, 262, 265, 269, 270, 
 297, 315, 318, 332, 334, 335, 348, 
 367, 368. 
 
 Moncreiff, Sir Harry, 315. 
 
 Moncreiff, James, 44, 45. 
 
 Moncreiffe as a residence, 398. 
 
 Montrose, 18, 43, 300, 334, 383. 
 
 Montrose, Dnke of, 26. 
 
 Monymusk, 376. 
 
 Moore Park, 91. 
 
 Moray Firth, 12, 155, 214, 216, 262. 
 
 Morayshire, 43, 155. 
 
 Morin, Mr., 240. 
 
 Moriston, 112. 
 
 Morven, 275 ; Hills, 280, 282. 
 
 Mossnian, 85. 
 
 Moss Paul, 95, 96. 
 
 Mount Stewart, 193, 194. 
 
 Moy, 354. 
 
 Muckairn Kirk, 78. 
 
 Muel (Maoil) Castle, 128. 
 
 Mull, 346 ; Sound of, 79. 
 
 Mure, David, 209, 296, 383. 
 
 Murphy, 54. 
 
 Murray, John, Lord-Advocate, 27, 
 
 46, 47, 87, 202. 
 Murray, Mrs. (Lady), 27, 28, 87. 
 Murray, William, 15, 28, 87. 
 Murray, Mrs., of Henderland, 128. 
 Murray, prisoner, 21. 
 
 Nairn, 42, 217, 262. 
 
 Nairn, the river, 218, 259. 
 
 Napier, Mark, 205, 235, 243. 
 
 Naples, Bay of, 215. 
 
 Napoleon, 64. 
 
 Neaves, Charles, Advocate-Depute, 
 
 177. 
 Nelson, Lord, 78. 
 Ness Castle, 138. 
 New Abbey, 60. 
 Newark, 55, 56. 
 Newburgh, 234. 
 New Galloway, 65, 248. 
 New South Wales, 113. 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 256. 
 Newton, Ayr, 247. 
 Newton-Stewart, 241, 248. 
 Nith, 59, 67, 239-241. 
 Noblehouse, 322. 
 North Inch, Perth, 46, 161, 236, 238, 
 
 341. 
 North Uist, 354. 
 Norway, 252. 
 
 Oban, 28, 77-79, 83-85, 89, 270, 
 
 287, 288, 344-347. 
 Ochtertyre, 76, 299, 343. 
 O'Doherty, 316. 
 "Option, The," 19-2L 
 Orkney, 352, 353. 
 Orphan Hospital, Aberdeen, 224. 
 Ossian, 79, 104. 
 Outram, Mr., 369, 370. 
 Oxford, 81, 84, 89, 229, 232. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 417 
 
 Paisley, 174, 375. 
 
 Panmure, Baron, 378, 380. 
 
 Papworth, 64. 
 
 Park, 139. 
 
 Parliamentary Diary, The, 73, 
 
 Patrick, 336. 
 
 Peebles, 239. 
 
 Peeblesshire, 374. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert,. 340. 
 
 Penal Servitude, 400. 
 
 Pennant quoted, 90. 
 
 Penninghame, 241, 242. 
 
 Pennymore, 28. 
 
 Penpont, 60, 67. 
 
 Pentland, William, 99. 
 
 Pentlands, 67, 172. 
 
 Perjury, 19-21. 
 
 " Perpetual Motion," 14. 
 
 Perth, 16, 21, 36-38, 42-44, 46, 73, 
 141, 144, 145, 149, 150, 157, 159, 
 161, 163, 164, 234, 236, 237, 239, 
 266, 268, 303, 314, 316, 321, 334, 
 341, 351, 361, 373, 378, 380, 383, 
 395, 397, 399 ; population of, 146 ; 
 Penitentiary, 207. 
 
 Perthshire, 374. 
 
 Phrenology, 147. 
 
 Pitlochry, 160. 
 
 Pitmachie, 374. 
 
 Pitmain, 213, 321. 
 
 Pitmilly, Lord, 73, 326. 
 
 Playfair, Principal, 227. 
 
 Playfair, architect, 41, 59, 64, 201, 
 312. 
 
 Pluscarden, 219, 220, 356. 
 
 Portobello, 176, 196, 374. 
 
 Possil, 4 ; House, 32. 
 
 Potter, William, 137. 
 
 Prescott, his Essays, 296. 
 
 Princess Royal, cutter, 290. 
 
 Pringle, Captain, 28. 
 
 Quarterly lieview, 206, 237, 342. 
 Queensterry, 321. 
 Quinigan, 353. 
 
 Raasay, 129. 
 
 Rae, Sir William, 139. 
 
 Railway, Northern, 351 ; Scottish 
 Central, 361. 
 
 Railways, 268 ; of Argyle, 294. 
 
 Ratichan, 114. 
 
 Reid, architect, 233. 
 
 Relugas, 13, 263, 264, 336, 376. 
 
 Renfrew, 32, 192 ; Ferry, 23. 
 
 Renfrewshire, 4, 171. 
 
 Renton, village, 369. 
 I Rest-and-be-Thankful, Glencroe,180, 
 I 318. 
 ' Richardson, John, 56, 88, 393. 
 
 Richardson, Mrs., 185, 292. 
 
 Richardson, Elizabeth, 299, 310, 314. 
 
 Richardson, Joanna, 332. 
 
 Richmond, Duke of, 275. 
 
 Richmond, the Spy, 33. 
 
 Riddle, Thomas, 8. 
 
 Rigby, Mrs., 87. 
 
 Road Trustees, meeting of, 48. 
 
 Robb, James, 358. 
 
 Roberts, 285. 
 
 Robertson, General, 312. 
 
 Robertson, C, 263, 265. 
 
 Rogers, 293. 
 
 Romilly's Memoirs, 73, 74. 
 
 Rona, 129. 
 
 Rosck (Rosque), 135. 
 
 Rosenberg, actress, 151. 
 
 Rose of Holme, 261. 
 
 Rose of Kilravock, 261. 
 
 Roslin, 391. 
 
 Ross, Easter, 136. 
 
 Ross, Herefordshire, 255. 
 
 Ross, islands of. See Little, Great 
 Ross. 
 
 Ross-shire, 42, 131, 155, 262, 377 ; 
 Hills, 12. 
 
 Rossie Ochil, 383, 398, 399. 
 
 Rothesay, 192, 194-197, 206, 292. 
 
 RotMemurchus, 40. 
 
 Rowan Tree, 241, 242, 248. 
 
 Rowardennan, 292. 
 
 Roxburghshire, 95. 
 
 Rum, 122, 129. 
 
 Rush, his Residence in London, 296. 
 D 
 
418 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Russell, Francis, 33(5. 
 Rutherford of Edgerstoii, 94. 
 Rutherfurd, A., Lord Advocate, 46, 
 70, 87, 92, 244, 289. 
 
 Sabbath Observance, 364. 
 
 St. Andrews, 226-228, 231, 247, 270. 
 
 St. Catherine's, 87. 
 
 St. John, Mr., 352. 
 
 St. Kilda, 290. 
 
 St. Leonard's College, 233. 
 
 St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, 
 232, 233. 
 
 St. Mary's Loch, 54-56. 
 
 St. Mungo, Isle of, 277. 
 
 St. Ninians, 382. 
 
 St. Regulus, Tower of, 227. 
 
 St. Salvator's College, 233. 
 
 Saltcoats, 174. 
 
 Saltoun, Lady, 138. 
 
 Sandford, Professor, 33. 
 
 Sannox. See Glen Sannox. 
 
 Scalpa, 129. 
 
 Scatwell, 136. 
 
 Scotland, attractiveness of, 3 ; Epis- 
 copalian tombs in, 138. 
 
 Scott, Captain, of Seggieden, 267- 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 12, 19, 26, 53- 
 55, 58, 83, 102, 103, 125 ; his qxien- 
 tinDurward, 165; his^ear^ of Mid- 
 lothian, 165 ; his Barnahy Rudge, 
 165; as Sheriff, 331; his Fair 
 Maid of Perth, 342 ; his Ivanhoe, 
 348, 349; his Waverley, 349; his 
 Gi(y Manneriny, 349 ; his Roh 
 Roy, 349. 
 
 Scourie, 353. 
 
 Seggieden. See Scott. 
 
 Selkirk, Lord, 249. 
 
 Selkirk, 54, 55. 
 
 Selkirkshire, 51. 
 
 Senwick, 255. 
 
 Seymour, architect, 312, 
 
 Shakespeare, 103. 
 
 Shanks, John, 16, 139, 155, 221, 264. 
 
 Sharp, Archbishop, 233. 
 
 Shaw, Marion, 247. 
 
 Shean Ferry, 287, 345. 
 
 Shetland, 353. 
 
 Shewalton, 243, 244. 
 
 Shiel House, 111, 113, 131, 147, 274. 
 
 Skye, 114, 122, 127-129, 134, 172. 
 
 Sleugach, 132. 
 
 Sligachan. See Glen Sligachan. 
 
 Sluie, 263. 
 
 Smith, Sydney, 269. 
 
 Smith, Mrs., 12. 
 
 Smith, Miss, Knockomie, 263, 
 
 Smith, Mary, 358. 
 
 Smollett, 180, 368, 370. 
 
 Snaigow, 36. 
 
 Soa, 122. 
 
 Solway Firth, 61, 215. 
 
 Southannan, 168. 
 
 South Inch, Perth, 236. 
 
 South, Dr., 269. 
 
 South wick, 60, 62. 
 
 Spar Cave, the, 116, 119. 
 
 Speculative Society, 391, 
 
 Speirs, Graham, 42, 
 
 Spey, 40, 214, 
 
 Spittal of Glenshee, 308, 361. 
 
 Spurzheim, 148. 
 
 Stair, 203. 
 
 Staffa, 79, 81, 346. 
 
 Stalker. See Castle Stalker. 
 
 Steell, sculptor, 380. 
 
 Stephen's account of Gregory vii., 
 
 268. 
 Sterne, 269. 
 Stewart, Donald, 150. 
 Stewart, James, 277. 
 Stewart, Lieut. John, 182. 
 Stewart, Mrs. , Erskine Manse, 91, 192. 
 Stewart's Inn, Trossachs, 299, 300. 
 Stirling, 3, 69, 71, 75, 104, 167, 179, 
 
 271, 299, 369, 373, 385, 386, 395 ; 
 
 races, 3. 
 Stirlings, Strowan, the family of, 
 
 343. 
 Stonehaven, 45, 150, 225, 334. 
 Stonehenge, 216. 
 Stornoway, 15. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 419 
 
 Strachur, 29, 85, 88, 201, 289-291 
 Park, 27. 
 
 Strath in Skye, 117. 
 
 Strath Dee, 360. 
 
 Strathearn, 75, 273, 301. 
 
 Stratheric, 361. 
 
 Strathmore, 149, 153, 304, 353, 395. 
 
 Strath Tay, 303. 
 
 Stronie Ferry, 129, 136. 
 
 Strowan, 76. 
 
 Stuart, John, barrister, M.P., 275, 
 278, 344. 
 
 Sutherland, 42, 
 
 Swanston, 172. 
 
 Sweden, 252. 
 
 Swift, 269. 
 
 Swinton, Lord, on the cotton-spin- 
 ners, 9. 
 
 Switzerland compared with Scotland, 
 3, 275, el 'passim. 
 
 Tain, 353, 
 
 Tait, Archibald, 385. 
 
 Tait, John, 385. 
 
 Talfourd, Serjeant, 32, 33, 81. 
 
 Tarbet, 26, 29, 32, 179, 183, 185, 206, 
 
 291, 292, 318, 319, 348, 364. 
 Tarbert, 200, 201. 
 Tarbert, East, 197-199. 
 Tarbert, West, 197. 
 Tarf, the river, 62. 
 Tay, 37, 162, 211, 303, 320, 399. 
 Taymouth, 184, 301 ; Castle, 303. 
 Tayuuilt, 346, 347. 
 Telford, Thomas, engineer, 109, 110. 
 Templeton, Thomas, 72, 
 Terregles, 239. 
 Teviot, 51, 52, 95. 
 Thomson, Dr. Anthony Tod, 240, 
 
 270. 
 Thomson, Elizabeth, 240, 270, 279, 
 
 282, 287, 292. 
 Thomson, Miss K., 318. 
 Thomson. Marion, 343, 
 Thomson of Burnhouse, 50. 
 Thornhill, 57, 65, 67, 98, 100, 101. 
 
 Thornton (Ayrshire), 371, 372, 386, 
 390, 393, 402. 
 
 Tickets of Leave, 400. 
 
 Tilt, Bridge of, 36, 157, 159, 160, 
 259, 310, 312, 338, 351. 
 
 Tobermory, 83, 
 
 Tobernan Keaun, 109 note. 
 
 Tods of Kirkhill, 48. 
 
 Tokes, 219, 
 
 Tongue, 353. 
 
 Tongueland Hills, 62, 65, 254. 
 
 Torgyle, 111. 
 
 Torquay, 83. 
 
 Torthorwald Kirk, 99. 
 
 Torwoodlee, 51. 
 
 Trades Unions, 8. 
 j Travelling, difficulties of, 320-323. 
 
 Troloss Toll-bar, 100. 
 
 Trossachs, 131, 133. 
 i Tulliebole, 314, 315 ; Tower of, 145. 
 
 Turnerelli, 58. 
 
 Tyndrum, 104, 105, 107. 185, 206, 
 318. 
 
 Tweed, 51, 239. 
 
 Underwood. See Kennedy. 
 Uphall, 322. 
 Urquhart, Adam, 139. 
 UiTard, 38, 161. 
 
 Versailles, 308. 
 Victoria, Queen, 360. 
 Victoria Lily. 377. 
 
 ! Wade, General. 180, 
 I Wallace Tower,' Ayr, 247. 
 I Ward, Lord, 109. 
 I Washington, 64. 
 
 Waterloo, 320. 
 I Westhall, 374, 376, 383. 
 
 Westhall, Lord, 374, 
 
 West Lothian, 374. 
 
 Whigham, Robert, Sheriff, 235, 266, 
 301. 311, 341. 
 
420 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Wick, 351, 352. 
 
 Wigtown Bay, 242. 
 
 Wildman, Mrs,, 87, 
 
 "Wilkie, Sir David, 182, 191. 
 
 Willoughby, Earl of, 26. 
 
 Willoughby, Lady, 300. 
 
 Wilson, Professor, his Nodes Am- 
 
 hrosianae, 316, 
 Wilson, James, his Voyage, 2D0. 
 
 Woods and Forests, Commissioners 
 
 of, 249, 250, 272. 
 Wren, Christopher, 156. 
 
 Yarrow, 55, 56. 
 Young, Arthur, 257. 
 Young, Mr., advocate, 99, 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 Printed by T. aud A. Constablk, Priuters to Her JTa.jesty, 
 at the Edinburgh University Press. 
 

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