ideal of a country gentleman. These walks often lead to points commanding the most exquisite snatches of all varieties of landscape. A small hill on the left may be mentioned particularly, as affording one of the richest prospects in Perthshire. It consists of a portion of the vale of the Earn near the village of Comrie, which reposes amid a profusion of beautifully wooded knolls, among which the silver windings of the river are alternately seen and lost, until they find an uninterrupted champagne, where they make a series of the most magnificent sweeps down to the bottom of the hill alluded to, and then lose themselves among the woods of Shewan. In this part of the foreground rises the singular and beautiful hill of Tom-a-Chastel, the site of the ancient castle of the early Earls of Strathearn, a structure of which no vestige exists except in the name of the hill. It has been worthily replaced by an obelisk of northern granite, which Lady Baird of Fernton has, with equal piety and good taste, reared to the memory of her husband, the late General Sir David Baird. This beautiful column, surrounded and half-hidden by a grove of old Scottish pines, occupies the top of the eminence, the lower parts of which are also beautifully wooded.-In the left of the distance we can look far into the forests of Glenartney. The huge hills which rise in the centre of our print are the same which are seen behind the village of Comrie; while on the right, the eye, after resting with delight on a beautifully shaped hill on which there has been erected a monument to the first Viscount Melville, and passing to the picturesque rock called the Chair of St Fillan, penetrates into the youthful course of the Earn, and delights itself in wandering over the outlines of the mountainous distance in the neighbourhood of the parent lake. The centre of the view we speak of, is occupied by the patrician woods and almost Roman villa of Lawers, where the lover of landscape may regale himself in a realization of the beauties of Milton's Paradise. But it were idle to descant on the prospects of Auchtertyre: they must be visited to be felt. This fine place is now the property and residence of Sir William Keith Murray, Bart., son of the late Sir Patrick. He is an amateur artist of great enthusiasm and acquirement, and the author of a series of outline Sketches of Scottish Scenery, in which are included views of many remote and not easily accessible places in the Hebrides and elsewhere, of which no other engravings have been published. LOCH TURIT. THE present plate represents the wild, and, till lately, almost inaccessible glen, amongst the hills of Auchtertyre, alluded to in the preceding article. A trivial incident which occurred when the poet visited this scene-the starting of some water-fowl from the lonely tarn-gave rise to his fine burst of benevolent feeling: "Why, ye tenants of the lake, For me your wat'ry haunt forsake? At my presence thus you fly? Busy feed, or wanton lave; Or beneath the sheltering rock, "Conscious, blushing for our race Man, your proud usurping foe, Would be lord of all below: Plumes himself in Freedom's pride, Tyrant stern to all beside. "The eagle, from the cliffy brow, Marking you his prey below, Glories in his heart humane And creatures for his pleasure slain. "In these savage, liquid plains Only known to wandir'ng swains, And life's poor season peaceful spend. "Or, if man's superior might, Dare invade your native right, On the lofty ether borne, Man with all his pow'rs you scorn: Our artist has well expressed the features of this savage wilderness,-the steep-down hills, filleted with mist-the stripe of plain, dotted with a few sheep-and the solitary lake, with its accessory rill exemplifying the usual law of curvature in discharging its waters through a piece of level ground. EUPHEMIA MURRAY, THE "Phemie" of Burns's delightful song to the old tune of " "By Auchtertyre grows the aik, On Yarrow banks the birken shaw; Than braes o' Yarrow ever saw. Blythe was she." |