Lord Strathmore left the Major and me, to go to Lenox-Love, (Lord Blantyre's) where his Aunt lives: so that afternoon and all next day I had leisure to visit the Castle, Holyrood-House, Heriot's Hospital, Arthur's seat, &c. and am not sorry to have seen that most picturesque (at a distance), and nastiest (when near) of all capital cities. I supped with Dr. Robertson and other literati, and the next morning Lord Strathmore came for us. We crossed at the Queen's Ferry in a fouroared yawl without a sail, and were tossed about rather more than I should wish to hazard again; lay at Perth, a large Scotch town with much wood about it, on the banks of the Tay, a very noble river. Next morning ferried over it, and came by dinner-time to Glames; being (from Edinburgh) 67 miles, which makes in all (from Hetton) 197 miles. The castle* stands in Strathmorc (i. e. the Great Valley) which winds about from Stonehaven on the east coast of Kincardineshire, obliquely, as far as Stirling, near 100 miles in length, and from seven to ten miles in breadth, cultivated every where to the foot of the hills, on either hand, with oats or bere, a species of barley, except where the soil is mere peat-earth, (black as a coal) or barren sand covered only with broom and heath, or a short grass fit for sheep. Here and there appear, just above ground, the

*This is said to be the very Castle in which Duncan was murdered by Macbeth.

huts of the inhabitants, which they call Towns, built of, and covered with, turf; and among them, at great distances, the gentlemen's houses, with inclosures and a few trees round them.

Amidst these the Castle of Glames distinguishes itself, the middle part of it rising proudly out of what seems a great and thick wood of tall trees, with a cluster of hanging towers on the top. You descend to it gradually from the south, through a double and triple avenue of Scotch firs 60 or 70 feet high, under three gateways. This approach is a full mile long; and when you have passed the second gate, the firs change to limes, and another oblique avenue goes off on either. hand towards the offices. These, as well as all the inclosures that surround the house, are bordered with three or four ranks of sycamores, ashes, and white poplars of the noblest height, and from 70 to 100 years old. Other alleys there are, that go off at right angles with the long one; small groves, and walled gardens, of Earl Patrick's planting, full of broad-leaved elms, oaks, birch, black cherry-trees, laburnums, &c. all of great stature and size, which have not till this week begun to shew the least sense of morning frosts. The third gate delivers you into a court-with a broad pavement, and grass-plats adorned with statues of the four Stuart Kings, bordered with old silver firs and yew

trees, alternately, and opening with an iron palisade on either side to two square old-fashioned parterres surrounded by stone fruit-walls. The house, from the height of it, the greatness of its mass, the many towers. atop, and the spread of its wings, has really a very singular and striking appearance, like nothing I ever saw. You will comprehend something of its shape from the plan of the second floor, which I inclose. The wings are about 50 feet high; the body (which is the old castle, with walls 10 feet thick) is near 100. From the leads I see to the south of me (just at the end of the avenue) the little town of Glames, the houses built of stone, and slated, with a neat kirk and small square tower (a rarity in this region). Just beyond it rises a beautiful round hill, and another ridge of a longer form adjacent to it, both covered with woods of tall fir. Beyond them, peep over the black hills of Sid-law, over which winds the road to Dundee. To the north, within about seven miles of me, begin to rise the Grampians, hill above hill, on whose tops three weeks ago I could plainly see some traces of the snow that fell in May last. To the east, winds a way to the Strath, such as I have before described it, among the hills, which sink lower and lower as they approach the sea. To the west, the same valley (not plain, but broken, unequal ground) runs on for above 20 miles in view: there I sce the crags above Dunkeld; there Beni-Gloe and Beni

More rise above the clouds; and there is that Shekhallian, that spires into a cone above them all, and lies at least 45 miles (in a direct line) from this place.

Lorth Strathmore, who is the greatest farmer in this neighbourhood, is from break of day to dark night among his husbandmen and labourers: he has near 2000 acres of land in his own hands, and is at present employed in building a low wall of four miles long, and in widening the bed of the little river Deane, which runs to south and south-east of the house, from about twenty to fifty feet wide, both to prevent inundations, and to drain the lake of Forfar. This work will be two years more in compleating, and must be three miles in length. All the Highlanders that can be got are employed in it; many of them know no English, and I hear them singing Erse songs all day long. The price of labour is eight-pence a day; but to such as will join together, and engage to perform a certain portion in a limited time, two shillings.

say

I must that all his labours seem to prosper; and my Lord has casually found in digging such quantities of shell-marl, as not only fertilize his own grounds, but are disposed of at a good price to all his neighbours. In his nurseries are thousands of oaks, beech, larches, horse-chesnuts, spruce-firs, &c. thick as they can stand,

and whose only fault is, that they are grown tall and vigorous before he has determined where to plant them out; the most advantageous spot we have for beauty lies west of the house, where (when the stone-walls of the meadows are taken away) the grounds, naturally unequal, will have a very park-like appearance: they are already full of trees, which need only thinning here and there to break the regularity of their trout-stream which joins the river Deane hard by. Pursuing the course of this brook upwards, you come to a narrow sequestered valley sheltered from all winds, thro' which it runs murmuring among great stones; on one hand the ground gently rises into a hill, on the other are the rocky banks of the rivulet almost perpendicular, yet covered with sycamore, ash, and fir, that (though it seems to have no place or soil to grow in) yet has risen to a good height, and forms a thick shade: you may continue along this gill, and passing by one end of the village and its church for half a mile, it leads to an opening between the two hills covered with fir-woods, that I mentioned above, through which the stream makes its way, and forms a cascade of ten or twelve feet over broken rocks. A very little art is necessary to make all this a beautiful scene. The weather, till the last week, has been in general very fine and warm; we have had no fires till now, and often have sat with the windows open an hour after sun-set: now and then