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hill together, sailed across the lake in an oblique direction, and separated at the beautiful island of Luss. From thence I proceeded to Inchlavennech (or the island of the two women), which commands a fine view of the lake itself, its shores and the surrounding hills. The greater number of these islands are merely sheep-pastures, and it is only on the largest that houses are to be seen. I entered into conversation with the boatman, who was a very pleasant old man: he taught me several Gaelic words, and readily gave me information on every subject on which I questioned him. I expressed my surprise at the numerous flocks of sheep which I saw feeding among the hills without any one to take care of them. He answered that these sheep were seldom known to stray, and that it was no uncommon thing for those who happened to be sold, to wander to the distance of 40 miles, and return to the flock to which they had originally belonged. I asked him whether he thought it possible that a sort of friendship could arise between animals who had been long accustomed to each other' ssociety; and he emphatically answered: "O Sir, there can be no doubt of that."

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The sun had nearly set when I quitted the island of Inchlavennech; and I was about 9 miles distant from Tarbat, where I proposed to pass the night. I proceeded along a beautiful road on the western side of the lake. The recollection of this evening, which I shall ever consider as one of the most delightful of my life, is still strongly engraven in my mind in proportion as the contours of the hills became more and more undefined, the roaring of the sea became the more audible; and from one of the distant glens, the tones of the bagpipe resounded in a peculiarly plaintive style. It was now quite dark, and I began to fear that the inn of Tarbat had escaped my observation, and that I had gone past the town. I entered a house on the road side, where I saw a light, and in one of the rooms I found a man in bed reading the bible. He informed me that I was not more than 200 paces from the inn; but he would not allow me to quit the house until I had tasted of a bottle of whiskey which he drew from under the bed.

Pursuing my course to Inverary on the following day, I passed through the wildest and most romantic part of the Highlands. Two miles from Tarbat I arrived at Loch Long, a great inlet of

the Atlantic; the brooks had been swollen during the night by heavy rains ; and proceeding past a range of waterfalls, partly descending in foam from the rocks, and partly appearing like threads of silver twisted among the heather of the hills, I reached the dismal vale of Glencoe. Here the hills are mere naked masses of stone; not a single thicket is to be seen, and along an extent of ten miles there is no human habitation. But for the numerous brooks which flow over the hills, uninterrupted stillness would prevail throughout this district; and the brooks can never dry up, owing to the proximity of the ocean, which envelopes the hills in continual mist and clouds. I spent the whole day in wandering about this wilderness, and in the evening I joined a numerous party at Inverary, where, owing to the arrival of the steam-boat from Glasgow, upwards of fifty persons had collected in the inn. The neat little town of Inverary, which belongs to the Duke of Argyle, is situated at Loch Fyne, an inlet of the Atlantic, well known to epicures, as the herrings caught there are accounted the best in the world. Now that the use of steam-boats has become general throughout Scotland, Inverary is three or four times a week the rendezvous of the inhabitants of Glasgow, who escape from the bustle of trade and manufactures, and throng hither to enjoy the beauties of nature. The boat leaves Glasgow in the morning, and arrives at Inverary, a distance of seventy miles, in the evening: the price of the passage is ten shillings, and the boat affords the best accommodation.

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With respect to vegetation, the country about Inverary forms a singular exception to other parts of the western coast of Scotland. Of the woods celebrated by Ossian, scarcely any trace remains, and trees no longer flourish on those spots which were formerly covered by them. This change of climate is particularly apparent in the Hebrides, where, in the course of excavations, the roots of ancient oaks have been discovered, below a soil, on which, at the present day, trees never grow higher than the walls erected to protect them against the west winds. The hills of Inverary are, however, still covered with the remains of these ancient woods. But the castle of the Duke of Argyle is the chief object of attraction to the curious, and it is reckoned one of the wonders of the Highlands. It is built in the Gothic style, on a most costly

scale; and the sum which is annually devoted to keeping it in repair, namely, 30007. may afford some idea of its mag. nitude. The plan of the edifice is that of an old fortress, and it is built of a light grey kind of stone, produced in this part of the country. I spent the morning very agreeably in viewing the delightful park in which the castle is situated, and then set out on my way to Oban. Faujas St. Fond has given a minute description of the mineralogical curiosities of the district, in which are situated the village of Oban and its convenient harbour. Its proximity to the ocean, and the view it commands of the islands Kerrera and Lismore, together with the blue hills of Mull, one of the largest of the Hebrides, render it truly romantic. Oban is usually visited merely for the sake of procuring a passage to Staffa, the celebrated basalt island. This was also my intention, though I was obliged to relinquish it, partly on account of the adverse state of the wind, and partly through the exorbitant demands of the boatmen: it certainly vexed me not a little to observe that these men, whom I generally found remarkably honest and civil, should attempt imposition on account of the great influx of visitors. To be disappointed of visiting Staffa, was to me a great sacrifice; for I have been informed that all the wonderful descriptions which travellers have given of that island, are far short of the impression it creates. At a short distance from Oban are the ruins of Dunolly, a castle which belonged to the House of Lorn, famed in Scottish history. Near the shore of Loch Etive there is a piece of rock of pudding-stone, which is interesting from the popular tradition connected with it. It is called in the Gaelic language clach-na-caw, or the dog's pillar; and the common people assert that Fingal has often tied his dog Bran to this piece of rock. On the first day of my journey from Oban, I proceeded through a tract of country celebrated in the early history of Scotland. In the vicinity of Dunstaffnage I passed the ruins of an old royal castle; and on crossing Loch Etive I reached the site on which Bere gonium, the ancient Scottish capital, once stood. According to tradition, this place was destroyed by subterraneous fire; and a young man of the neighbourhood informed me, that stone was found here that would swim on the water, probably a kind of pumice-stone. I crossed Loch Ereran, and arrived

within the district of Appin: this was the scene of many events in the life of Fingal, and the hills of Morven, celebrated by Ossian, are on the opposite coast of the inlet into which I sailed. I would fain have crossed the small arm of the ocean, and entered the kingdom of Fingal, but there happened to be no convenient place at which I could pass the night. Morven is an island about twenty miles long and ten broad; it is almost uninhabited; the hills and narrow glens produce no vegetation but heath, on which thousands of sheep are fed. It belongs exclusively to two wealthy landholders; for here, as is universally the case in the Highlands, it is found more profitable to let land to one or two rich farmers, than to parcel it out among poor families. This cruel system is the main cause of the depopulation of the Highlands; for the proprietor by letting his land to one or two rich farmers, compels the poorer ones, who formerly occupied it, to wander to distant parts of the country in quest of a subsistence. The name of Morven now belongs only to this little piece of land; but the Morven of Ossian extended over the greater part of the western coast of the Highlands. I passed the whole afternoon in this place without meeting a single person; and on arriving near Balichulish, where I intended to pass the night, I saw a piece of stone, about nine or ten feet high, fixed in the earth: it was in the form of an obelisk, and proved to be a piece of gneiss. This was the first monument of the kind that I had met with; erected in sight of the hills of Morven, it was probably the funeral monument of some hero of Fingal.

I had proposed, on the following day, not to take the direct road to Fort William, but to proceed through Glencoe and across the hills, distinguished by the singular name of the Devil's staircase. My host doubted whether I could find my way across the hills; he shook his head, and gave me a direction in broken English, and also a letter to a man who could conduct me over Loch Leven's Head, where the bridge was broken. A fine road leads through Glencoe, the most celebrated, but at the same time the dreariest valley in the Highlands. Glencoe was the birthplace of Ossian, and the little rivulet which runs through it and forms a lake in the centre, is the Cona, in allusion to which, the bard frequently styles himself the Voice of Cona. The hills which surround this

valley and give it the appearance of an immense basin, are merely masses of naked stone of the most various forms, intersected by water-falls in every direction. Besides the recollection of Ossian, this valley obtained in the last century, a melancholy kind of celebrity through the massacre of the Macdonalds. The house of Macdonald of Achrichtan, is now the only habitation which the valley contains. I proceeded slowly through Glencoe, not much heeding the penetrating mists which drenched me to the very skin. A continual motion of the mists is daily apparent here, and is a peculiarity of this region of imaginary phantoms. I unexpectedly passed through this valley twice instead of once; for by taking a wrong course across the Devil's staircase, I arrived at

a miserable public-house, and not being inclined to pass the night there, I was obliged to go back, to the distance of 17 miles, in order to return to the place whence I had set out in the morning. Here I cannot forbear mentioning a trait which reflects honour on the Scottish character. Night had set in, and I was chilled with cold and rain, when I arrived at the inn from which I had originally set out: the landlord expressed much concern on finding that his directions had proved useless; the best refreshment which the place afforded was instantly set before me, and next morning when I demanded my bill, I could neither induce the man to give it me, nor prevail on any one in the house to accept the smallest recompense for their trouble. (To be concluded in our next.)

THE HERMIT'S SKETCHES

THESE delightful sketches of English manners have a mystery about them which we cannot penetrate even by guesses. The most cursory reader will enquire with eager curiosity by whom they are written. He must have been a votary at once of gaiety and of letters conversant with all the varieties of society, from its lowest to the most exalted ranks a trifler and a philosopher -a man of fashion, and a lover of the romantic. He is at home alike in town and in country-at Edinburgh and at London-and hits off with equal felicity the enticements of a hackney coachman essaying to procure passengers, and the matrimonial schemes of an accomplished dowager. No one can doubt for a moment that he has long been familiar with the highest and most glittering circles, which he describes with an ease so graceful, and satirizes with a humour so genial and free from gall. Yet it is equally evident that his study of the gayest ranks has not injured his sympathies for those sorrows which are the common lot of his species, or for those errors which destroy the happiness which nature offers. Light and airy, as most of his delineations are, there is more of real heart in them than in many works professedly sentimental; and he often makes us feel seriously and intensely, while he is captivating us by the prismatic hues, in which he sets manycoloured life before us.

But we are not only puzzled to imagine who could have written these works, but surprised at the variety of agreeable pictures which they contain of a class of society, whose peculiarities have long been gradually vanishing. We scarcely imagined that, in this degenerate age, the world of fashion had enough of prominent characteristics left to furnish one volume without caricature or scandal. Time was when it had a romance of its own; when its heights required no mean ambition to reach them; and when its glittering honours were bright enough almost to reward a life of assiduity and toil. Then infinite airs and graces were requisite to retain a supremacy of fashion; then courtesy had something in it of the ideal; then airy wit and delicate raillery were native to the drawing-room as to the stage; then the art of dress was really one of the fine arts, and excellence in it was almost a proof of genius. Then a masquerade was a temporary revival of the age of chivalry. What a magnificent scene was exhibited at every ball-what rich brocades, what high sparkling stomachers, what grand circumference of hoop, what looks of young beauty, heightened by the antique richness of the draperies, what stately pyramids of head-dress, what generous restraints of curl! Then the gracious unbendings of the lofty dowager, and the rarely be stowed smile of the toast of all the wits

The Hermit in London, or Sketches of English Manners, 5 vols. 12mo.
The Hermit in the Country, 3 vols. 12mo.

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-were they not worth dressing or fighting for? The entrance of a young lady into the world, was an event then which excited as much flutter of expectation as the appearance of a novel by the author of Waverley," or a poem of Lord Byron, does in these literary times; -and deserved it as well. Then taste was not banished to circulating libraries; nor had elegance taken refuge in books, and become a dead letter. Now, alas! the height of indifference is the height of fashion; the art of dress affords no scope for high fantasy; courtesy is out of date; and the refinements of gallantry are tales of old! The democratic spirit of the times may, in some degree, be attributed to the change. When the people, at their public places of resort, enjoyed the spectacle of rank and beauty, fitly apparelled in visible splendours, they were proof against arguments on the natural equality of the species. The divinity that did hedge the aristocracy of the higher orders, was too palpable to be disputed. The eye was fed with high pageantry in repayment for the taxes. Now the higher orders have not only resigned the distinctions of dress, but have ceased to visit the scenes where they formerly condescended to receive and to communicate pleasure. They long ago deserted Ranelagh they have almost cut the opera-and they have quite cut the theatre, "which is the unkindest cut of all." It was a glorious spectacle to see the boxes waving with feathers, and glittering with gems; to perceive sympathy making its way through the rich folds of the stomacher; to see the fairest eyes suffused in tears" which sacred pity had engendered there;" to feel at once all the distinctions of rank and all the community of nature, the high privileges of station, which were a treasure to the imagination, and the higher rights of humanity, which were set mantling in the heart. Surely this was better than moving in cold private circles without the joy of being admired or excited than lounging at a French play, or going to sleep at a concert of Italian music!

There is another class too, who of yore gave life and animation to the town-now alien from their once happy distinctions-the students of the Inns of Court. What energy had they once in their pleasures, what influence on the tastes of the age e! They were among the gayest in the Parks, were wittiest among the wits, critical amidst the poets, and arbiters of the fate of

plays. What tavern suppers-what high convivialities what romantic adventures at masquerades, chequered their gay career! In proportion as the study of the law was difficult, their enjoyments were intense, and their recreations tasteful. They whetted their wits on "Coke upon Littleton ;" and caught a keen appetite for pleasures in the regions of black letter learning. Now their prerogatives of criticism are transferred to the newspapers, their poetry to the Magazines, their direction of the theatres to the apprentices-and their wit-Heaven knows whither! They care nothing for new plays; lounge into the boxes at half-price to pass away the time; admire Miss Foote, like all the world, and encore Miss Stephens, be cause nobody can help it. Some of them read and work hard, with a view to the seals; but the gay ambition of shining for the night, and mingling intellect with enjoyment, and refining the tastes of the age-is, we are afraid, retained by comparatively few of the once celebrated Templars.

In such a state of society the produc tion of these volumes required no small length of observation, and no low degree of ingenuity and of skill. For though, as we have already hinted, they are not confined to that elevated class of which the author is evidently a member, the far larger portion of them is devoted to its splendid circles all the varieties which it presents its airiest vanities and minutest charms are seized by the author, and pourtrayed in their most delicate shades. The Hermit "in the Country," indeed, catches as he ought more of sentiment than in London, and extends his views of humanity with his horizon. He is meditative on the seacoast, jovial in Scotland, and poetical in Britainy. The good nature of his remarks every where is as conspicuous as his good sense; and his Sketches will, we think, be almost as instructive as they are amusing. We shall give two extracts from the "Hermit in the Country," which has only just issued from the press; one of them will afford a specimen of the author's gayest, and the other of his more serious style.

AN EXQUISITE'S LIFE IN THE COUNTRY.

"THE solitude of a country life is fitted only for the saint, the sage, or the philosopher. To any other man it loses its charms, when he cannot enjoy them in company with friends and fellow men. To see a fine prospect, an enchanting wood, a limpid

able to say to somaterfall, y

river, a delightful

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Without being turned into cash, their corn and hay at the a lovely market, instead of in their fields, is their scene saddens the heart of man. Society sole delight; that their tenants are only the is as necessary for the country as the town; tributaries to their pleasures, and their flocks but the man who transports town habits food for their table; and that they care and pleasures into the bosom of nature, neither for family pedigree, nor family estate, loses the fountain and the grove, the ver- except as they can make them conducive to dant lawn, and the delicious retirement their consequence and luxuries. which country scenery and a country life present!

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn, to watch his majestic rising from the gilded East, to contemplate the rosy-fingered morn ing, opening the day upon man, to view the prismatic colours reflected in the drops of dew, to brush that dew with early foot from the shrub and floweret in our healthful walk, to behold the glories of the setting sun, or the silvery moon-beam playing on the surface of the quiescent lake, to admire the expanded rose-bud, and to watch the progress of nature in its spring, are amongst the loveliest and sublimest enjoyments, and are unknown in the busy haunts of vicious and populous cities. The country, retirement, health, order, sobriety, and morality, can alone furnish them.

"There are fashionables, however, who expect to make nature subservient to their habits and caprice, every where, and in every thing; and who, not content with bringing summer in January, into their painted and gilded saloons, by rare shrubs, flowers, plants, and the expensive contents of their conservatories, added to the forced fruits and other articles of ruinous luxury with which their boards abound, madly expect to transmit town enjoyments, and dissipation, into the country, in order to lead the same unvaried course of voluptuousness and riot all the year round. In contradistinction to what we hear of "rus in urbe," it is with them urbs in rure; and not satisfied with turning day into night, and night into day, in town, they convert summer into winter, by passing it in London, or at some watering-place, where they only go as an adjournment of the London spring, and then travel down to the country, to view leafless trees, fields clad in snow, and to be either confined to the house, or to brave bad weather for a short time for form's sake.

"Wedded to the London system of rising in the evening, riding at dusk, and dressing by taper light, they carry the same unnatural and unwholesome arrangements to scenes 'which would have furnished a retreat full of charms, if visited in the spring, or in the summer. For them the feathered choir chaunts in vain; for them the flower expands not; all is haze, fog, and darkness, unless perchance the rising sun blushes at their orgies, or reminds them that the day has opened ere they retire to a feverish bed."

"There are rakes and debauchees who unblushingly tell you that they only wish to see their family mansion in order to collect their rents; and that to behold their woods NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 78.

"There is a depravity in all this which absolutely denaturalizes the heart; but, as this is the object we have at present in view, let us peruse the life of a certain nobleman at his family castle, surrounded by majestic woods, lakes, and forests, peopled for his use; a numerous and faithful tenantry, and the most romantic scenery which the eye can possibly view.

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Engaged in London until July, and at Brighton until December, he gets down to this ancient edifice, the pride of his ancestors, about the first week in January, and leaves it in March, just as the days are lengthening, and increasing the ennui which the contemplation of rural objects occasions him.

"Surrounded by foreign cooks, confectioners, and fiddlers, he travels all night, and arrives at day-break. His effeminate form sinks for a few hours on down; and he rises in the afternoon. The breakfast-table is covered with delicacies, and with the provocatives necessary to excite a sated appetite. Gamblers and demireps, dandies and adventurers, compose his numerous party. "The weather is odious," says he: "what a bore the country!" He comes there only for fashion's sake, and in order to raise his rents. His spirits are low; brandy alone can save him from the blue devils; he swallows the liquid fire. The billiard-table occupies five hours, his toilette takes two

more.

"The second dinner-bell has rung; it is past eight, and he descends to his banquetting room. All here is pomp and pageantry : nothing is rational. Foreign wines and cookery compose the fare. Excess reigns over every thing. Intemperance plies the frequent cup, and vocal and instrumental music breathe their most voluptuous sounds.

"Now comes the hour of gambling. His woods, his lands, his moveables, are all hazarded again and again: ten times in the night they are lost and won. A castle totters on a single card: the comfort of his tenantry depends on one throw: agitation and ill humour ebb and flow: avarice and ruin stare each other in the face. The game is over. He has lost only two or three thousand and the grinding of a few farmers will rub off his score. He goes to bed. Conscience has nothing to do with him; for these are only considered as the peccadillos of fashion.

"Occasionally he sallies forth in the evening with a legion of liveried attendants. The woods are surrounded; the birds are circumvented; the cover is beaten. Armed VOL. XIV.

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