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the kirk, a nobleman or gentleman's mansion; but a peasant population or a peasant's cottage is rarely to be met with. Here we got into two carriages, that is, two cars, with seats slung across the centre of each, and suspended from the sides by iron chains, as hard, untractable, and uncomfortable as possible, while to allay our fears about restive steeds, we were assured that none of them had run away but once, and that once was probably the only time the animals had ever been put to the proof. They carried us, however, in safety through the wild and solitary magnificence of the valley of Glencro, where Alps on Alps arise, to "rest and be thankful." and thence through torrents of rain,and clouds of mists, in which the ghosts of Ossian doubtless were enveloped, to Arrachar, another inn at the head of loch Fine, where our demand for supper and beds was as loud and as often repeated as if we had escaped from a city beseiged with famine, and had enjoyed no repose for seven long nights. The demand was answered with true highland hospitality and attention, and despite the smoke of peats, the noise of the rain, and the swelling of the waters, we went to sleep, as soundly as wearied and wayworn travel. lers generally do.

Being fatigued with the jolting of our Highland vehicles the preceding day, we next morning commenced a pedestrian excursion of a few miles across the country, from one inn to another, our servant and some Highland boys carrying our luggage. This part of our travels I liked best, but just as I sat down to describe it, mamma came in and interrupted me, and says I have almost entirely omitted the most interesting circumstances of our itineracy; the delightful and instructive conversation of our friends, and that she will write the first part of this morning's ramble herself, and that as the rest of this packet is from Marianne to Harriet, she will have one paragraph of it from "Mamma to Mamma."

"I have taken up Marianne's pen, my dear friend, to supply the lack in her journal of what I esteem the highest privilege I have enjoyed in this delightful tour; namely the spiritual and intellectual conversation of our dear Scottish friends, with whom we have tabernacled, going as it were, from tent to

tent, for some days past. But not to be tedious, I shall take up the narrative just where my beloved daughter has left off. The morning which succeeded to our pilgrimage by Ardkinlass and Glenkinlass, through the mountain defiles of Glencro, amid rain and mists, rose in all the unutterable beauty and brightness of a day without clouds, and we walked from Arrachar on the head of loch Fine, a short distance to Tarbet, on the shores of loch Lomond. Ben Lomond in all his mountain majesty rose before us, high towering over the rest of the landscape. As we paced along, we were led to speak of life as a journey. Some pilgrims on before, some behind, and others following after; a few perhaps desiring to return to that world from whence their hearts had never been really divided, others struggling hard to maintain their footing in the narrow way, as mountain after mountain rises before them, and one hill of difficulty is surmounted only to bring them to the steeps of a second. Others declaring plainly that they desire, and seek a better country, that is a heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. As we journeyed we met many fellow travellers, some carrying burdens they could ill sustain, especially in the heat of the day; others altogether light and unburdened save with the weight it might be of inward cares; many walking; a few in carriages with all the "appliances and means" of luxury. We passed, also, occasionally, bands of reapers in the fields, and others who appeared to be standing all the day idle, perhaps because no man had hired them. Such was the literal scene, which summed up our spiritual speculations; both, indeed, were so obvious to the reflective mind, that we could not easily separate them. We talked as we went and communed together, of the Israelites of old going up to Jerusalem to worship, and of the interesting groups, which must occasionally have presented themselves to the wayfaring man as he encountered them 66 coming from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burntofferings and sacrifices, and meat-offerings and incense; and bringing sacrifices of praise unto the house of the Lord." We spake also of the Psalmist's passionate attachment to the house

of God, and of the beauty and vehemence of his expressions in the eighty-fourth and sixty-third Psalms. How amiable are thy tabernacles O Lord God of Hests, my soul longeth, yea fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. O God! thou art my God, early will I seek thee; my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee, in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary!" This led us to talk of the localities of religion, and of the much higher privileges of the gospel dispensation under which we are permitted to lift up every where holy hands without doubting,' believing that God will hear us; and unconfined either to ⚫ this mountain or Jerusalem,' may in any spot worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

"As we spoke of the experience of the Psalmist, as portrayed in the Psalms, I found that my friends generally made their quotations from their church psalmody, or that very barbarous translation in rhyme, as I deemed it, which forms the vocal part of their devotional service. On making this observation, my companions, I thought, looked almost offended by it, yet I knew their highly cultivated taste too well, not to feel persuaded before I ventured to make a remark which might other wise have appeared rude, that they were quite aware all the constituents of poetry were wanting in it. I do not wonder' replied my dear friend, that your poetical ear finds nothing but what is harsh or quaint, or as you venture to call it, even barbarous, in our metrical version of the Psalms, but to our ears it is most precious, and we would prefer even its barbarisms, to the highest refinements with which the finest genius could invest it. Its phraseology is associated with our earliest sensibilities, our first ideas of God and heaven, and holiness and blessedness; and every thing that is sacred and venerable are intermingled with it, a mysterious kind of feeling is communicated by the very rythm of its rudest discords, which no other strains, however soft or high, could impart or supply. The early remembrance of father and mother is wrapt up in it, and I cannot yet hear the words "The Lord's my shepherd

I'll not want."

Or, "Within thy tabernacle Lord

Who shall abide with thee?

without being carried back in imagination to the morning of life, when my parents, my brothers, and my sisters, were round about me, and when we lisped together at evening tide our Sabbath prayer. Oh! it is sweet-most sweet! and when I think' added she, as she wiped away a tear from her pale cheek, • When I think that they are all gone, and that I, and I only, am left alone of all that beautiful and beloved group, the words that my mother taught me then, now comfort while they melt my heart, and I feel in the rude rhyme and barbaric numbers of that precious psalmody a consolation as sweet as it is unutterably touching! Yes, I feel it with intense emotion, and one verse which often cheered her widowed heart, I never can forget,

"Because the Lord a father is

Unto the fatherless;

God is the widow's judge, within
His place of holiness."

While mamma and her friends conversed in the manner above related, we younger folks amused ourselves with gathering wild flowers by the way, or botanizing among the heaths or hedges, till we arrived on the banks of loch Lomond, the most beautiful of lochs! where we awaited the arrival of the steam-packet, by which we were to return to G. While we tarried for it, we employed ourselves in gathering pebbles on the shore, and like the Scots children with wading in the water, while some of our party were reading, writing in their tablets, or enriching their sketch books with the beauties of the scene. The silence was as deep and still as midnight, except that now and then the sharp shrill bark of a dog was heard, as he panted up the mountain side in pursuit of a hare, which the shepherd boy in his play had started from its seat among the furze and ferns. Once the sound of oars was heard as a boat returned from the opposite shore with a party of gentlemen who had ascended Benlomond at dawn of day, and were returning to Tarbet. Sometimes we listened to the sound of voices in gaelic, as one reaper saluted another in passing, but except these, which were only occasional, and with which, as Milton would say, "silence was pleased," all was so still, so deep the solitude, that you might have heard a fly dip its soft wings in the water,

At last there was the rushing sound of the paddles, long heard before the approach of the Marion herself. She arrived, we got on board, and proceeded to view the majestic scenery of the loch: the Bens of all names, Benlomond, Benchocham Benvenue; and the Inches of all names, Inch Darrigh, Inch Lonach, Inch Stravanigh, and various other little islets, which like baskets of flowers were buoyant upon the bosom of the water. The ruins of the fortress of Inch Merin were pointed out, where Stuart, the youngest son of the duke of Albany, in the reign of James the first, strengthened himself against the royal power, and from whence coming out like a lion from the swellings of Jordan, he burnt the town of Dumbarton, slew the king's uncle, Red John Stewart of Dundonald, and like a cowardly rebel, intimidated, rather than appeased by vengeance, fled and took refuge in Ireland. The king sent several bold barons against the rebel garrison, which consisted of followers of the fugitive, when the fortalice after a few days siege was surrendered.

It is probable that the names of the other islands carry along with them part of their own remote history, the rest of which has been lost in the lapse of ages; and that Inch Lonach, or the isle of yew trees, might have been a burying-place for the inhabitants of Inch Stravanigh, or the isle of monks. In one of the islets, Robert the Bruce, of heroic memory, found shelter with a few of his devoted companions, when after being twice unhorsed in battle, and twice in danger of being taken by the English knights, he wandered among the mountain fastnesses of the Trosachs, and at last finding a crazy bark, he entrusted himself, like Cæsar and his fortunes, to the waters of loch Lomond, and being received by Malcolm, earl of Lennox, was provided with a vessel by which he escaped to the lord of the isles in Cantyre.

As it drew near evening we approached the limits of the loch, from whence after proceeding to Dumbarton in carriages, we again embarked in another vessel and sailed up the Clyde towards G-. There were various groups of passengers on board, who gradually disappeared with the shades of evening, either by going below, or retiring in parties to gossip in different parts of the ship. An old Highland shepherd in his

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