the gate of the manse to view the procession, and many were the benedictions with which they saluted the proud chieftain as he passed.

Of the M'Goul's progress to Glasgow we forbear to speak: it was worthy of him, and of the civilized portion of the region through which it was made. As far as Balloch ferry, the transit of Venus over the sun, as beheld by the French philosophers, was a dim unnoticed spot, compared to the cometic luminary of his advance. It was, however, late in the evening before he reached the Trongate of Glasgow; the lamps and shops were lighted up, and he remarked to the gillie with the trunk on his shoulder, who was also his servant, and had been a soldier in a

Highland regiment, "that he had never seen so big a toun in al his life, with such a confabulation of candles and cruisies that were a pleasantry to see."

THIS was not only the first time that the Chief of the Clan-Jamphrey had been in Glasgow, but the first time he had entered an inn, in which the smell of peat-reek and train-oil did not predominate. We may, therefore, conceive his amazement at the splendour which broke upon his vision when he entered the Black Bull; a house which he often after wards said was as pretty a kingdom of heaven on the face of the earth, as a man could take half a mutchkin in upon a drop-on-the-nose day.

Donald, who was more rogue than fool, told him that the illuminations were all on account of the chief of the Clan-Jamphrey, and it behoved him to take some notice of the compliment; whereupon Pharick the piper was ordered to put his drone in order, and play up "The garb of Old Gaul;" the Chief himself bore his bonnet aloft, and in this order they proceeded along Argyle Street, towards the Black Bull Inn, startling the natives with

"The outrageous insolence of pipes."

He trusted a good deal to the experience of Donald his servant, who had seen, as he said, the outer side of the world, and who was his guide on this occasion to the regions of the South. Donald, as we have already mentioned, more rogue than fool, though hired for the occasion, saw through the Chief's peculiarities, and had some enjoyment in bringing them out; but, like a true Highlander, his master's pride could be in no more jealous custody; no man in his hearing durst say aught in disparagement of his redoubtable Chieftain, and if he now and then laughed in his sleeve at his odd conceits and extravagant self-importance, it was but a custom he had learned from the Southrons in the army.

Donald told the waiter on their arrival that the best room in the house was not too good for the MGoul, and ordered a savoury supper

to be set out for him immediately, as he had come from Luss that day, and stood in need of refreshment. Accordingly, without having occa sion to utter more than a grunt of approbation, they were shown into a parlour, where presently the wait er began to lay the cloth for supper, Roderick walking about the room in the meantime, flourishing his stick, and affecting to be as much at gentlemanly ease as the Dean of Guild of a borough town in the presence of King George the Fourth, at his ever memorable reception in Holyrood House.

Supper consisted of the usual delicacies of the season; among other things was a plate of eggs in cups of mahogany, with a radiance of bone or ivory spoons surrounding the dish in which they were served.

The moment that the Chief saw this phenomenon, he made a dead point. at it, but a certain mauvaise honte prevented him from asking the waiter to explain. He had heard, however, of the usages of inns, and calling aloud for a bottle of Port, (meaning porter,) Mr Towel-under-arm skipped out of the room as a Highland deer would from his lair on the mountains, and Donald the servant being left alone in attendance, the amazed chieftain said to him,

"Well, Tonald, what can thay round wee white things be, in the tawny dram glasses of timber ?"

The waiter received the order with great complacency, and enquired what number of seats he would be pleased to secure in the coach.

"Oh! the whole tot of them," cried the M'Goul; "it's no every tay the M'Goul goes to the Lowlands."

The waiter, without shewing any particular mutation of physiognomy, went to the office, and ordered, as directed, the whole inside to be secured for the Highland gentleman and his tail; which was scarcely done, when Mr Paction the writer came into the office, and besought a place, as he was summoned to attend a meeting of counsel next morning, but the clerk declined to receive his money, without the consent of

The waiter, however, none daunted, returned to the office, and told Mr Paction he might still go with the coach as an outside passenger, for the Highland gentleman had said nothing about that.

"Oh! very well," said Mr Paction, "I will take the outside, and trust to being permitted before the journey is half over, to take an inside place."

Thus it came to pass, that at the hour when the coach started, M'Goul, Pharick, and Donald his man, stepped into the inside of the mail, and Mr Paction, with a good comforter about his neck, and his great-coat well buttoned, mounted on the roof.

The guard happened to belong to the Clan Jamphrey, and exulting that he had his chieftain on board, fired his pistols, as in days of yore, and blew a blast both loud and shrill, as the coach hurled down the Gallowgate.

"What's that?" cried the chief to Donald, when he heard the pistols crack.

“Oh,” said Donald, "it's Hector Macgregor, the guard: he was a soldier in our's, and me and him had a caulker together for auld lang syne, and for your honour's journey to London."

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Umph," said the chief.

Then the bugle took up the admonitory strain, and the chief said, "Tonald, what'na too tooing's that?"

"Oh!" said the man knavishly, "it's to let the peoples know who is going to Edinburgh."

"Umph," cried the chief; adding, "well, there's some jocose flirtation in a great man like me travelling over the hills and far awa in these brutalised places."

At this crisis, a shower, which had been all the evening lurking in a lowering cloud, began to spit out a little, rendering Mr Paction on the outside rather uncomfortable; and the chieftain within, who, with his attendants, being little acquainted

arrived at the next stage; here he jumped down-was as quickly at the fire-side-and ordered as abruptly a dram; the chief, too, with his tail, alighted, and went also to partake the blandishments of the kitchenfire, which the boisterous night, and the lateness of the hour, kindly commended.

Mr Paction, very little appeased with the treatment he had received, drank his dram without noticing the M'Goul at all.

The chief, equally regardless, placed himself by the fire in an armchair, and taking off his shoes, deliberately placed them within the fender, and began to warm his toes, but scarcely had he done this when the guard sounded his horn, and gave note that all was ready. Mr Paction mounted aloft, as before, and the Laird and his tail were obliged to run as fast as possible, he huddling up his kilt, and Pharick the piper carrying the shoes which he had not time to replace.

VARIOUS have been the treatises on the art of Landscape Gardening, an art which our neighbours the English seem to consider exclusively their own, and which they have certainly carried to a very considerable degree of perfection. That a country so rich as England, blessed as it is with a more fertile soil, a more genial climate, distinguished for a much longer period for wealth, industry, and accumulated capital, should have taken the lead of Scotland in this species of luxury, is so far from surprising, that it seems an inevitable consequence of the circumstances in which the two countries have been placed. Neither is it wonderful that in our first attempts to improve the style of our country residences, we should endeavour to copy England, and to decorate our parks and pleasure-grounds after the English fashion. But various considerations induce us to think that in doing so we have erred. The circumstances of the two countries in point of soil, climate, and scenery, are so essentially distinct, that the same style of decoration cannot be adapted for both, and instead of attempting to introduce beauties foreign to our soil, and of which we can never produce more than a very imperfect imitation, we should rather endeavour to make the most of those features of landscape which are truly our own, and which in their own way are perfectly unique and inimitable.

Scotland is the "land of the mountain and the flood;" her plains are few, and her vales comparatively narrow. The natural features of the country, over by far the greater part of its surface, are those of rugged steeps and swelling hills;-rivers, rapid and winding, with precipitous banks, only opening into valleys of any extent as they approach the sea. Even in what are called the Lowlands, we cannot boast of a level above a very few miles in compass. In the flattest districts, the horizon is invariably bounded by ranges of mountains; and extensive tracts of

champaign country, such as are common in England, like those seen from Richmond and Windsor, are among us altogether unknown.

England is, on the contrary, comparatively flat and level. We are not absurd enough to say, that England has not her mountains and precipices, her rocks and waterfalls. Derbyshire and Cumberland, and the whole principality of Wales, can testify the contrary; but the general character of English scenery is flat, and what we northern mountaineers might rather consider tame. But far be it from us to undervalue this tameness. Though fondly attached to our own native hills, we love the rich vales and fertile plains of merry England-her, prospects studded with splendid seats and smiling cottages, where, from one moderate eminence, we are able to distinguish forty or fifty village spires, intermixed with hedge-rows, gardens, and interminable corn-fields and pastures, till the whole gorgeous scene loses itself in the undistinguishing haze of blue distance. Such, in many parts, is the common country scenery of England; but when, deviating from the high-road, we enter the private domains of her more wealthy noblemen and gentlemen, and view art contending with nature, which shall exhibit most to excite our admiration, and impress us with delight, we do not wonder that those whose circumstances admit of the expense, should be anxious to transfer such scenes to their own country, and imitate at home those effects which they see to have succeeded so splendidly with our southern neighbours.

The wish is natural, but a little reflection and experience may teach us that it is vain. With the inferior soil and climate of Scotland, and those constant characteristic differences in the aspect of the country, it would be impossible, by means of all the wealth of all the sovereigns of Europe, to produce such scenes in this part of the island, as are to be seen in many gentlemen's parks in England. We cannot transport to

our stern and rugged country the smooth velvet turf, the splendid lawns, the stately groves of Blenheim or Hagley; if we could, we cannot people these groves with nightingales, nor illuminate them with an English sun. We cannot command the distant scenery, the rich and varied prospects which form the background to the picture; we cannot, in many instances, rear the delicate plants and shrubs which delight our senses in the home

scenes.

Much ridicule has been bestowed upon the stiff formal style of gardening, which has been designated the Dutch style, and which was introduced among us about the time of the Revolution. The ridicule would have been better directed against those who adopted a style unsuitable to the nature of English scenery, than against the style in itself, which is admirably suited to the circumstances of the country where it took its rise. It is not solely from want of imagination, that a Dutchman delights in straight lined walks and clipped hedges. In a country so level as Holland, it is natural that every thing should be straight, precisely because there is no reason why it should be otherwise. If we have to go from one point to an other, the straightest line is always, ceteris paribus, the best, because it is the easiest and least expensive to make, and the shortest to travel. Hence, in Holland, where there are no hills or rising grounds, canals and roads are made as straight as an arrow; and to have made an exception of garden walks, would have argued a degree of caprice and frivolity quite unworthy of so steady, industrious, and sensible a people as the Dutch, who never do any thing without a good reason. Again, in a country where the soil is so rich, it is necessary that hedges should be clipped, otherwise they would grow so high as to exclude all view of surrounding objects. The transition is not very great, from clipped hedges to clipped shrubs and trees; and where no natural features ever in

trude to contradict the prevailing regularity, this sort of restraint upon Nature's productions, in place of being absurd and ungraceful, is only in character with that universal neatness, the effect of art and industry, which meets the eye in every quarter. Dutch gardening, we therefore conceive, is exactly suited to the circumstances of Holland, and to the scenery, or rather the no scenery, which is to be found in that country. It was absurd to introduce it in England, as was attempted to be done by William the Third; but that sovereign was distinguished by higher qualities than his taste for ornamental gardening.

It were needless to trace the gradations of taste in England from the formal style of the 17th century, through the successive schools of Kent, Brown, White, Price, Knight, Repton, and Gilpin. All of them had, or have, their peculiar merits. All of them contributed to explode certain errors which had prevailed before their own time; and both by their success and their failures, aided the formation of that rational taste which is now pretty generally diffused among all the educated classes of society. Some of them, in wishing to avoid one error, fell occasionally into the opposite. The ornate artificial style of the Elizabethan age,-the terraces, fountains, statues, and arbours, which delighted our great-great-grandfathers and grandmothers, were in some cases discarded too unceremoniously for the naked lawn, the dull melancholy belt, and the formal clump. But such errors have been visited with their full measure of reprobation-and, in the midst of conflicting systems and opposite styles, something like true taste has at last been elicited, and some principles have been established, which are not likely to be violated again in any very grievous or intolerable degree.

Into the merits and demerits of these respective schools, their controversies and opposing theories, we do not mean to enter, as we have no intention to write a treatise