18

Villages distance of two miles, and having in view a fine reach or

nan.

curve of the river, with the towers of Alloa and Clackmannan, the castle of Stirling, and even the mountain of Tinto in Clydesdale. The houses of Kennet, Tillicoultry, and Tillibodie, also deserve notice. Indeed, every residence in this district derives much beauty from its southern exposure; a large river and a fertile valley in front, and a chain of lofty mountains to the northward. The late Sir Ralph Abercrombie, whose fall in Egypt excited such general national interest, was proprietor of Tillibodie, which he derived from his father. This family was uncommonly fortunate. During the life of the father, the eldest son attained to high command, and the first degree of popularity, as a British officer in Europe; the second son, General Sir Robert Abercrombie, was governor of Bombay, and commander in chief of the forces in Bengal; and the third son, Lord Abercrombie, was a senator of the college of justice in Scotland.

There is no royal borough in this county. The village Clackman of Clackmannan is the head town of the county. It stands on the ridge of a hill; its street is broad and regular It contains upwards enough, but the houses are mean. of 600 inhabitants; and the artificers who live in it are chiefly employed by the surrounding country. It has two annual fairs, which are noway distinguished. It is to be observed, that there is only one sheriff, or, as he is called in Scotland, sheriff-depute (there being no highsheriffs), for Stirling and Clackmannan. He has, lowever, a substitute for each; and the substitute for Clackmannanshire holds courts at times here. The member of parliament is elected, and the fiars, or annual valuation of the grain, is fixed at this village. The most considerable town in the county is Alloa; most of the streets of it are narrow and irregular. It has a good harbour, where, at

Alloa.

neap-tides, the water rises from twelve to fifteen feet, Villages. and at spring-tides from seventeen to twenty-two feet. The quay is substantially built of rough hewn stone, and forms a creek, here called a pow, into which a rivulet falls. Above the harbour is an excellent dry dock, large enough to contain a ship of forty guns. Above the dry dock is a ferry, at which two complete piers have been built on each side of the river. The breadth of the water at full tide is about half a mile. This place was formerly celebrated for that branch of the woollen manufacture called camblets, but it has of late years greatly declined. A considerable number of weavers are here employed by the Glasgow manufacturers; and the shipping employs several mechanics. There is here a manufactory of bottleglass, in a very convenient situation, with a pier adjoining, by which their goods can be unloaded or embarked; and a waggon-way, which brings coal from the pit to their door. There is also here a manufactory of brick and tiles, and a tanwork. Alloa has four annual fairs, and is, upon the whole, considered as a prosperous and active place. The remaining villages of the district are of little import

ance.

The population of the county of Clackmannan stands thus:

B 2

Parishes.

A shep herd's library.

Almost all the common people in Scotland who are counted of a decent and respectable character possess a less or a greater collection of books; the number is seldom great, and they usually consist of books of religion and ecclesiastical or other history. Sometimes, however, considerable collections of books are made by individuals, particularly those residing near villages to which itinerant auctioneers of books sometimes go. In the Statistical Account of the parish of Dollar, mention is made of a person, holding the rank of a common shepherd, who

had carried the propensity to accumulate books to a length that is necessarily very unusual with persons in such a situation. He had collected no less than 370 volumes of divinity, history, travels, voyages, complete sets of the Spectator, Guardian, Tatler, Rambler, &c. besides magazines of various sorts. His name was John Christie ; he was born in 1712; and it will readily be believed that he remained unmarried; a circumstance which enabled him to expend the produce of his industry in the way now

mentioned.

Upon the whole, though this district possesses great ad vantages, from its minerals and the vicinity of a navigable river, yet this river, on the one side, and the mountains on the other, in some degree, render it a sort of seques. tered spot, interrupt its communication with the rest of the country, and have in some measure hitherto prevented it from attaining to that degree of importance to which it might otherwise aspire.

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KINROSS-SHIRE.

Boundaries. PROCEEDING eastward, along the foot of the mountains, across a corner of Perthshire, which here irregularly penetrates to the Forth, we arrive at the small inland county of Kinross. We formerly mentioned that the country which extends from the Ochil hills to the German ocean, with the Tay on the north-east, and the Forth on the south, was in ancient times called Ross. The appellation resulted from its insular situation. This word, in the Gothic or Pictish language, signifies a peninsula: hence Kinross, or Keanross, as it was formerly spelled, signifies the head of the peninsula; Culross, the back of the peninsula; and Muckross, the old name for Fifeness, the point or snout of of the peninsula. By this general name it continued to be called, until in later times, as Buchannan informs us, "Reliquum agri, ad Fortham usque, ambitio in varias præfecturas dissecuit, Clackmananam, Culrossianam, et Kinrossiaanam." The last of these, about the year 1426, was divided into the two counties of Fife and Kinross; and at the revolution, Kinross being thought too small a county as it then stood, was enlarged by the addition of Orwell, Cleish, and Tillibole; which parishes, before that period, had belonged to the county of Fife. But though these are now two distinct counties, and are separately represented in parliament, they are both comprehended in the sheriffdom