tion, which has been given only to afford a specimen of the kind of scenery we allude to, and to direct the attention of the public to a kind of beauty, which we think deserves more to be cultivated than it has been. There are few estates of any extent in the south of Scotland, in which more than one scene of this description may not be found; some of them entirely neglected-some worse than neglected, and all of them capable, by a little care, of being converted into scenes of very considerable beauty.

In the treatment of such scenes, we would advise strenuously against one error which we shall now proceed to point out. Some proprie. tors, finding a glen to be bare and naked, have thought that the only thing necessary to improve it is to plant it up entirely with wood; the consequence of which has been, to convert it into an impenetrable thicket, through which the rays of the sun cannot pierce; and where no view, either of rock, wood, or water, can by any possibility be seen at any one point. One instance of this we knew, in the case of a scene of surpassing beauty, which, in our younger days, used to be our resort and our delight. It was wooded just sufficiently for ornament. Its steep banks were hung with birches and hazles, where giddy paths afforded the shepherd-boys access to the nut bushes. The haughs and gentler slopes were covered with the most beautiful greensward, affording a rich pasturage for the cows of the neighbouring farm. Trees of lofty growth crowned several of the heights, standing out as giants to guard the fairy scenes below; while the rivulet winded, murmured, and sported in all the varieties so well described by Burns

"Whiles o'er a linn the burnie played,

As through the glen it wimpled ; Whiles round a rocky scaur it strayed,

Whiles in a wheel it dimpled. Whiles glittered to the nightly rays, Wi' bickering dancing dazzle; Whiles cookit underneath the braes, Below the spreading hazel, Unseen that nicht."

Such was, when we first recollect it, that beautiful glen; whose windings discovered scenes, such as no lordly park, dressed by the art of the gardener, could ever boast. It was the haunt of youthful genius,* and its memory came over the "spirit of his dream," in far distant and less genial climes. But in an evil hour it attracted the notice of an improving proprietor. Orders were given to enclose and plant it. It was enclosed and planted accordingly: walks were formed, and an ornamental cottage built, all according to rule. But nature abhors all such violent measures-all such sweeping reforms. She has had her revengethe glen is shut up, and the public excluded. They need not regret the exclusion-its beauty is utterly destroyed.

Wherever scenes of this kind exist, they should be dealt with tenderly. Nature may be assisted and led; and even in her wildest haunts, she may be wooed to display some of her most magical graces; but if we try to compel her by force, or to embrace her too closely, she is sure to give us the slip, and the result will be disappointment. Such a glen as we have described, ought on no account to be enclosed. It can only be kept in its proper state, by being pastured with cattle. The scythe and the hoe never ought to enter it. In summer, cattle find a profusion of food in the sides and bottoms of the glens, when the other pastures are burnt up or exhausted. By being pastured, their vegetation is prevented from degenerating into rankness, and prevents the necessity of arti ficial cutting, which would both be intolerably troublesome, and after all, would not answer the purpose.

Sheep, which are the proper inhabitants of a lawn, are not so proper in a glen, as they tear their woolly coats among the rocks and bushes. The objection generally made to cattle is, that they destroy the walks ; but if these are formed in the way we have mentioned, this objection vanishes. The walks should be mere footpaths; and if they are constantly used as such, they will soon become so hard, that the cattle cannot injure

them. In a picturesque point of view, we know nothing that looks better than cattle browsing quietly in a glen, or retiring from the heat of a burning sun, standing in a pool under a canopy of overshading trees -a favourite subject in the pictures of Claude-affording one of the most perfect images of refreshing repose and rural quiet.

If our glen is bare of wood, it ought by no means to be planted up entirely. The proper character of a glen is variety, which it affords in a greater degree than any other de scription of scenery; and our object should be to preserve, and, if possible, improve this character, by introducing glades and openings, through which the rocks and wooded parts may be seen to advantage. In general, the rule is, to plant the steep banks, and leave every level spot open for pasture and for view. If the banks are too steep for largesized wood, let them be planted with hazel, birch, mountain-ash, and other shrubby trees, suited to the soil and situation. Introduce occasionally hollies, hawthorns, sloes, (the foliage of which exceedingly resembles the myrtle,) dog-roses, blackberries, and brambles. On no account introduce laurels, or any exotic plant or shrub, as this destroys the feeling of natural ness; and suggests the idea which we have all along endeavoured to avoid, that here we are indebted to the art of the gardener. If the rocks are bold and prominent, let them be seen in all their nakedness. If of a tamer description, and not remarkable in their contour, they may be hung with some common creepers. Let an old stump here and there be decorated with Irish ivy. In some wild part of the glen, leave a part of the bank covered with ferns, or shagged with thorns, briars, and furze; and it may not be amiss, if in a marshy spot the edges of your brook are ornamented with queen of the meadow, (meadow-sweet,) and that most magnificent and picturesque of weeds, tussilago.

In regard to the sort of wood proper for a glen, much may depend upon the nature of the soil, or what is found already in possession of the ground. If any old or natural wood exists, it ought by all means to be preserved any thing that is planted

should be made to harmonize with it. But if we had our choice, we confess we would prefer the oak as the predominating tree, and as more suitable to glen scenery than any other. The rounder and softer leafage of the ash is less in character with rugged banks and steep precipices, and nothing agrees with these better than the oak. The larch ought to be introduced sparingly; sometimes the dark and taper cones of the spruce, produce a happy effect among other wood; but by far the most picturesque of the pine tribè is the Scotch fir, when it can be brought to a sufficient age and stature, raising its thick and broad pyramidal top over the heads of other trees.

The variety and beauty of a glen is not confined to a single season of the year; but almost every successive month shews it in a different aspect. Even in winter, it is not without its peculiar beauties, when the trees, deprived of their leafy covering, shew, more distinctly than at any other season, their infinitely varied ramifications, and exhibit a degree of intricacy of form that has hardly attracted the attention it deserves, as one of the modes of natural beauty.

This is never so striking as after a fall of snow, or hoar-frost, when every branch and twig appears like a piece of coral, or like the most beautiful cuttings of paper. At this time, also, the icicles formed on the rocks and sides of the overhanging steeps, assume the most fantastic forms, like those of stalactites, or the roots of enormous trees. In spring, before the trees have assumed their full foliage, the glens put on another form of beauty. We have seen, at this season, every bank in a perfect blow with primroses and daisies; the rocks hung with geraniums, blue bells, and other wild flowers; the hawthorn covered with its rich blossom, and the furze shining as bedropped with gold. This is the season of blossoms and flowers; and in no situation can these be seen in such profusion as in our glens.— "which not nice art

In beds and curious knots; but nature boon, Pours forth profuse

Both where the morning sun first warmly smites

The open field, and where the unpierced shade

Embrowns the noon-tide bowers."

In those fortunate seasons when Scotland happens to be favoured with a summer-which, notwithstanding the sarcasms of our southern neighbours, does now and then occur, -and when the brooks are evaporated to a mere thread, or reduced to a succession of shallow pools, with hardly the vestige of running water, the glen presents a different scene to those who will take the trouble to scramble along the bed of the stream, and explore all its wildest nooks and recesses. The jutting rocks and projecting roots of the trees and bushes overhanging the banks, bared of their soil, and twisted into a thousand antic shapes, exhibit an endless series of picturesque combinations. The dark dens at this time afford delightful retreats by their refreshing shade, rendered more gratifying by some portion of the sunbeams struggling through the branches of the trees above, and reflected on the trembling surface of the water.

We need say nothing of the appearance of the woods in that season when vegetation is in all its glory; but we cannot omit the splendid effect of those variegated colours which precede the fall of the leaf, and which are seen nowhere in such perfection as in the hanging banks of a glen.

We have still another change to mark, during the prevalence of our autumnal and wintry floods, when every brook is swelled to the size of a river, every petty rill has become a considerable brook, and every little fall a cataract. At these times, not only is the bed of the rivulet filled from bank to brae, but every rock and precipitous bank along the sides of the glen, sends down a multitude of streams, tumbling in a succession of tiny cascades, performing with their tinkling treble, a pleasing accompaniment to the deep roaring bass of the torrent below. Things are always considered great or little by comparison; and it would be absurd to talk in very magniloquent terms about an ordinary flood in a little nameless stream; but there can be as little doubt that the appearance even of such a stream in a state of raging flood, rushing over the linns, and struggling through the rocky defiles of a narrow glen, is an interesting spectacle, and one which excites some degree of that feeling which is always attendant on any exhibition of a power which no exertion or contrivance of man is able to resist.

We shall here close our lucubrations for the present. We may perhaps return to the subject at some future time, if we find that our mode of treating it meets with the approbation of our readers.