A walk of five miles, through a wild country, with some genuine Highland moors on the way, brings you to Inversnaid Mill, on the shore of Loch Lomond. The pass down to Inversnaid is so steep, and dark, and deep, that it seemed to me an hundred men might have been murdered there without being heard-Rob Roy must have held it as a favourite spot. There is a single cottage on the shore; and I entered it with a curiosity inspired by a thousand tales of romance. A Highland cottage, at the bottom of one of the wildest Highland passes!-what would it be, and what its inmates? I found a woman and her daughter, who told me that they had no neighbours, and exchanged no visits with anybody. There was no chimney. The smoke found its way out at a hole in the roof, but not till it had circulated in many eddies and wreaths around the beams and rafters, which were black and shining with soot. Along the wall adjoining that against which the fire was built-for there was properly no fireplace-were to be dimly seen the apartments or stories, one above another, of a sort of crib, such as Walter Scott has described, as answering the purpose of a bedstead. I asked the woman for food. She had nothing but oatmeal cake, which she produced, and I was glad to try a specimen of Highland bread. But, in good truth, I should never desire to have anything to do with it, save as a specimen; for of all stuff that ever I tasted, it was the most inedible, impracticable, insufferable,-dry, hard, coarse, rasping, gritty, chaffy: I could not eat it, and it seemed to me that if I could, it would be no more nourishing than gravel kneaded into mud and baked in a limekiln. As to drink, whiskey-whiskey, the boatmen said, was the only thing, and the thing indispensable. I tasted of it; and truly it had not the usual odious taste of our American whiskey. It is said that the peat, by which it is distilled, gives it a peculiar flavour.

As to the estimate of this article, or something like it-something "wet and toothsome,' as the wretch Peter Peebles says-I should suppose that Highlands and Lowlands agree, nay, and all England for that matter-for I have never seen anything like the numbers of persons that I have observed here, after dinner, or in the evening, sipping their brandy and water or whiskey punch. It would seem strange to some of our American reformers; but I have been at supper, where the meal was introduced by the host with a grace;" and the brandy and hot water were brought on at the close of the entertainment, evidently as a matter of course, and I was very much urged to take some, as a very excellent thing; and, indeed, as the conscientious Peebles says, "they had like to ha' guided me very ill."

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From Inversnaid Mill a steamboat takes you up and down the entire length of Loch Lomond, thirty miles. A rainy day did not hide altogether the bold and majestic features of this shore and mountain scenery, though it prevented me from seeing it to the best advantage. Around the lower part of Loch Lomond is the country of the Lennox; from whence a ride through the vale of the Leven brings you to Dumbarton, where a steamboat again, at almost any hour, will take you up to Glasgow.

The cathedral here is a grand old pile; the only one that Knox spared, and which he still frowns upon from his monument in the cemetery on the opposite hill. And this last spot suggests the subject of funerals, which are celebrated with much pomp, as it appears to an

American taste, throughout the kingdom; the hearse bearing a sort of forest of waving plumes over it-white for the young, black for the elder-the carriages and horses put into as deep mourning as their owners. It would seem that there are entertainments on these occasions; for I saw over a shop here this singular advertisement-" Funeral and Fancy biscuit, for sale here.'

HAMILTON, July 23.—I have come down to Hamilton to-day, on my way to the Falls of the Clyde, Tweeddale, Abbotsford, &c. I have several times observed, as I did to-day, very tidy looking young women walking barefoot, and carrying a little parcel in hand, which was evidently the stockings and shoes. Indeed, neatness and thrift seem characteristic of the people everywhere. When there is no scenery to engage attention, Scotch husbandry, at least, is a pleasing feature of the landscape.

About two miles from Hamilton are the ruins of Bothwell Castle. The property now belongs to Lord Douglas, and the castle is situated just in the rear of his seat. And very few things have I seen equal to the beauty of its situation, on a bold, rounded, wooded bank of the Clyde, with the ruins of an old abbey on the opposite bank.

About half a mile from this is Bothwell Brig. The land slopes on each side of the river to the bridge, so that the two bodies of troops who fought here might, it is evident, be plainly in sight of each other, before engaging as they are represented by Walter Scott. A fair vale spreads above, and below, the river winds between steep, rocky, and wooded banks, making altogether a scene fitted to rebuke the fierce passions that once drenched this spot with blood.

From Bothwell Brig, stretches fourteen miles, I was told, up the banks of the Clyde, the estate of the Duke of Hamilton. I went to the palace. It has one noble portico; but mostly it is low and inelegant, though immense-looking altogether more like several blocks and squares of fine buildings in a city than anything else. I should suppose the possessor might easily entertain some hundred or two of guests. I observed not much less than a hundred bells in one of the lower entries. The furniture was much of it old, but exceedingly rich, mosaics, ebony cabinets, carved work, &c. The ceilings beautifully gilt, and that of the picture gallery exceedingly splendid-approaching the dazzling appearance of the back of a diamond beetle as seen under the microscope. It was this gallery chiefly that I came to see. But I was very much disappointed. There are some paintings said to be of the old masters, but put in such bad lights that it is scarcely conceivable that they should be worth much. There is an original Bonaparte of David-a fine countenance, and more natural, easy, amiable, and even more handsome than is usual in the portraits and busts of him. The gallery consists chiefly of common-place looking men and fair womenmostly Hamiltons; but the chef d'œuvre is a Rubens-Daniel in the Lions' Den. The lions I thought were very good, but I did not like the face of the Daniel. It is pale and livid, and shows fright or distress full as much as reliance. If it is trust, it is the agony, and not the repose of trust. Some may think it surprising that a traveller, raw from the New World, should undertake to criticise a painting. But I say that the painter is to be judged by the general eye, as truly as the orator, and so shall I go on my way criticising as if I had been brought

up at the feet of Raphael-criticising, i. e. not the technical things of the art-not the mixing of colours, or drawing, or perspective-but criticising the general effect. If the painter means to strike the general mind, the general mind must be his judge.

LANARK, July 24.-The ride from Hamilton to Lanark is full of beauties. But the Falls of Clyde here are most beautiful. Whether they are as well worth visiting as the Giant's Causeway and the Trossacks, I will not say; but certainly they raise the emotion of pleasure higher than either." Stoney Byers below is well enough; but the chief beauty is above, at Corralinn and Bonnington.

We left Tillietudlem, three miles from Lanark, on the right, two miles from the road, and out of sight. I am told an old woman near there was very much vexed by the inquiries of rambling visiters, after the publication of Old Mortality. She could not conceive what sent all these people, all at once, asking about Tillietudlem.

July 25, 26. From Lanark, through Peebles, to St. Ronans.-St. Ronans is a neat village; and about half a mile distant, at the foot of one of the hills which surround it on all sides, is St. Ronans' Well; but nothing could I hear of any place or ruin called Mowbray Castle.

About twenty miles from Lanark, you strike the Tweed, and thence the road to Kelso is chiefly through the vale of the Tweed. It is mostly narrow, and hemmed in on both sides by high, heathery hills. Tweeddale, I believe, is the northern confine of the Border-land. Three or four old ruins of castles are to be seen on the road; making the appearance of a chain of castles.

The great objects to-day (the twenty-sixth), and enough to make any day remarkable, are-Abbotsford, Melrose Abbey, and Dryburgh Abbey.

Abbotsford takes its name from a ford over the Tweed, near at hand, which formerly belonged to the abbots-of some neighbouring monastery, I suppose. It is well worth visiting, independently of the associations, which make it what it is--what no other place can be. The structure too-the apartments-the furniture-are altogether in keeping with those associations. Everything is just what you would have it, to commemorate Walter Scott. The building is a beautiful Gothic structure. You will not expect a description from me of what has been already so minutely and so well described. You remember the hall of entrance, with its stained windows, and its walls hung round with ancient armour, coats of mail, shields, swords, helmets-all of them, as an inscription imports, of the "auld time;" the dining and the drawingrooms; the library and the study; the curiosities of the place-choice paintings, curious old chairs of carved work—the rare cabinet of relics, Rob Roy's musket, pistols from the dread holsters of Claverhouse and Bonaparte and all surrounded and adorned with oaken wainscotingand ceilings, the latter very beautifully carved, yet very simple-everything, indeed, wearing the appearance of great dignity and taste: well, I have seen it all-I have seen it! But the study! before the desk at which he wrote, in the very chair, the throne of power from which he stretched out a sceptre over the world, and over all ages, I sat down-it was enough! I went to see the cell of the enchanter-I saw it; and my homage-was silence, till I had ridden miles from that abode of departed genius.

I am tempted here to give you an anecdote, which has been mentioned to me since I came to Europe. An American lady of distinguished intelligence, had the good fortune to meet with Scott frequently in Italy, till she felt emboldened to express to him something of the feeling that she entertained about his works. She told him, that in expressing her gratitude, she felt that she expressed that of millions. She spoke of the relief which he had brought to the heavy and weary days of languor and pain; and said, that no day so dark had ever risen upon her, that it was not brightened by the prospect of reading another of his volumes. And what, now, do you think was his reply? A tear rolled down his cheek: he said nothing! Was it not beautiful? For you feel that that tear testified more than selfish gratification; that it was the silent witness of religious gratitude.

I must pass by the well-known and often-described beauty of Melrose Abbey, three miles from Abbotsford, and ask you to go on with me a few miles farther to Dryburgh-the place where "the wreck of power" (intellectual) is laid down to rest. If I were to choose the place of his body's repose, from all that I have ever seen, it would be this. The extent, antiquity, and beauty of the work; the trees growing within the very walls of the abbey; the luxuriant shrubbery waving from the tops of the walls and from parts of the roof here and there remaining; the ivy, covering over the work of ghastly ruin, and making it gracefulhanging from "the rifted arches and shafted windows," and weaving festoons from one broken fragment to another; the solemn, umbrageous gloom of the spot; the perpetual sound of a waterfall in the neighbouring Tweed-all conspire to make this spot wonderfully romantic; it throws a spell over the mind, such as no other ruin does that I have seen. Conway Castle is more sublime: Melrose Abbey is more beautiful in its well preserved, sculptured remains; but Dryburgh is far more romantic. What place can be so fit to hold the remains of Walter

Scott!

Before crossing the Tweed, and while yet on Scottish ground, I wish to drop one thought which I have carried more than seven years, I believe, without ever finding the proverb to avail me at all. And that is on the striking resemblance between the character of Scotland and of New England. The energy and vehemence of the Scottish character, the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum, is universally acknowledged. Fier comme un Ecossais, is a proverb. And yet the Scotch are accounted a singularly wary and cautious people; reserved in manners, exact in speech, guarded in communication, and keen and close in the transaction of business. The Scotchman has the singular fortune to stand as a proverb for the most opposite qualities, and I suppose that they really exist in him. The same qualities are found in the New England character. The Yankee-"it will not deny"-is sharp at a bargain. He is cold in manners. The deep reserve of a New England boy, especially if living retired in the country, perhaps no one can understand who has not experienced it. It seems as if his heart were girded with a stronger band than any other, and certainly such as is not natural or befitting to the ingenuousness of youth. I do not wonder that the result of a cursory observation has been, to pronounce the New Englander a being, to whom "nature has given a double portion of brains and half a heart." And yet nothing could be more untrue.

The New England character is, in fact, one of the deepest excitement and enthusiasm. The whole history of the people proves this, from the Landing at Plymouth to this hour. Every species of enterprise, political, commercial, literary, religious, has been developed in New England to a degree, I am inclined to think, unprecedented in the world. All America is filled with the proofs of it. And private life in New England will exhibit the same character to all who become intimate with it. The two races whom I am comparing have also had the same fate of general misconstruction and opprobrium. The Scot is regarded, on the south side of the Tweed, very much as the Yankee is, south of the Hudson. I will not inquire into the causes of this; but it certainly seems a very hard case on either hand. A people in both instances, industrious, virtuous, religious, almost beyond example-carrying popular education to a point of improvement altogether unexampled in the world, till the Prussian system appeared-and furnishing far more than their respective quotas to the noblest literature of their respective countries-would seem to have deserved more respect than has been awarded to Scotland and New England.

ENGLAND-YORK

CHAPTER IV.

THE MINSTER-CHURCHES AND CHURCH BUILDING-YORKSHIRE DIALECT-AMERICANISMS-ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY COMPARED WITH OURS KENDAL-WINDERMERE-AMBLESIDE A CONVERSATION ON ENGLISH AND AMERICAN POLITICS-VISIT TO GRASSMERE-PONY RIDE AMONG THE LAKES-KESWICK-ULLSWATER-THE LAKE SCENERY.

YORK, July 29.-From Dryburgh, I came through Kelso, Newcastle, and Durham, down to York.

After a delightful ride on the banks of the Tweed, leaving the vale of the Teviot, and the Cheviot hills, on the south, I entered England, nine miles below Kelso.

In Northumberland, on the road to Newcastle, I passed several extensive moors, very like the country described by Scott as surrounding Osbaldiston Hall.

As you approach Newcastle, it becomes evident that you are in the region of collieries. "The smoke of the country goeth up as the smoke of a furnace." It is not the smoke of its destruction, however. It is the indication of life, and not of death-ay, and of life that has gone down far into the bowels of the earth; for it proceeds from the chimneys of steam engines, employed at every pit, for the double purpose of pumping out water and raising coal.

DURHAM. The cathedral, one of the finest in England, and the castle, now the bishop's palace, I could not stop to examine.

York is a queer old place, worth coming a good many miles to see for its own sake. But the minster!-it is worth a pilgrimage to see it. It is the only building I have ever seen in a city that stands up and out so completely from the surrounding mass of buildings, that it is, from every quarter, distinctly presented to the eye. The minster, amid the city of York, stands like the elephant in a menagerie. Its propor