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ings of our lowland valleys. Need we do more than mention the classic retreats of Roslin and Hawthorn den? These are well known, and generally visited by all strangers of taste; but they are merely a specimen, a favourable one perhaps, of a kind of scenery which, to one who is fond of exploring nature's secret haunts, may be found in hundreds and thousands of places in the Scottish lowlands, many of which are little known or heard of even among those who live within a few miles of them. One such we know, which, without any pretensions to grandeur of character, or greatness of dimension, contains within a very narrow space, almost every variety of picturesque beauty. In one turn of the valley, the rivulet winds round a mass of rock, forming a peninsula, on which grows and flourishes a vigorous oak, fed by the scanty soil with which the rock is covered; while other aged trees, spreading their branches over the rushing stream, form a grateful shade impervious even at noon-day. In another spot, a space of level ground affords room for two or three smiling cottages, whose whitened walls and smoking chimneys give this part of the valley a look of cheerfulness and happy retirement. Behind this, but quite out of sight of the cottages, the rivulet precipitates itself into a darksome den, forming a cascade of no great height, but the sound of which is reverberated from the opposite rocks, in such a way as to give it the effect of a much larger fall. The opposite bank, above the rocks, is steep and high, covered with hazels and other brushwood, while a few picturesque firs, happily placed, vary its outline, and offer good objects for the pencil. Farther up, the rivulet works its way over a rocky but not a steep bed, round another field or haugh overhung with woods, chiefly oak, growing upon the surrounding banks. From this we pass to another narrow den, where a rustic bridge has been thrown across, just below another little fall entirely shaded with oaks and hazels. Above this, on one side, we have a small but neat picturesque plat of greensward, girt round with magnificent oaks, through which we see the rivulet brawling down its rocky

course; and beyond it a fine hanging bank of wood of considerable height, almost excluding the light of the sun.

The wood on the other side is thinner, and of no great depth, but the trees are of considerable age and dimensions. This green plat, with its accompaniments, have struck more than one, as suited to the performance of the play in the Midsummer Night's Dream.

Passing from this scene, we have on the left a frowning rock of considerable height. Part of this is bare and overhanging; on either side is a continuation of the same rock, partially covered with soil and shaded by trees, some of them bent and hanging over in picturesque and varied forms; the peeps and views through which at various points, might afford endless studies to the young painter.

Above this, we have another glade or opening, the steep banks opposite covered with wood, and shewing occasional points of rock and trees, in conspicuous and picturesque positions. Another turn of the glen brings us just over a third fall, or rather rapid, which we hear only, but do not perfectly see, owing to the steepness of the bank and the thickness of the underwood. The effect of the rushing water here, joined with the shade of the trees, is refreshing, and invites to rest on one of the numerous seats. Farther on we have another den, still narrower and darker than any of the preceding, at the head of which we have a fourth fall entirely closed in with rocks, trees, and undergrowth. Nothing can exceed the coolness and the sense of entire seclusion inspired by this scene, when we descend to the surface of the water in a panting summer's day. Above this point, the country opens, the glen loses its character of seclusion, and the rivulet appears to wind through fields of a tame and ordinary cast. In returning, however, we have an opportu nity of viewing the same objects from above, in totally different points of view, from which they sometimes appear in such a way as to produce the happiest effects; every step we take affording a different combina tion.

Our readers may perhaps be tired of the minuteness of this descrip

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 7 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 artificial 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

• Leyden.

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 description 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 tribe 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,

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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.

1883.1

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DID you ever hear tell of Wind-whistle Lodge,
Where the blasts do howl so mournfully,
And ghosts through the broken casements dodge,
And chase each other most dismally,

And at dead o' nights though calm and still,
There only the winds are whistling shrill?

The Owl flits by with his eyes askaunt,
For 'tis no place where he may preach,
And to shivering sinners his homilies chaunt,
He passes it by with a death-like screech;
For woe betide, if the whirling dust

A feather but touch with its withering rust.

Full ten long months that Owl would moan,
And utter no speech nor even prayer,

And the feathers would fall from his sunk breast-bone,
And his owlet children creep round and stare;

And his goodwife-owl make sad ado,

As he should droop-to-whit to-who-whoo.

O Wind-whistle Lodge is an awful place,
And yet it was not always so;
But wore a sunny and smiling face,
Though now a ghastly look of woe.
Then listen, fair maidens, and I will tell,
How this so wondrous change befell.

O to think thereon it paineth me sore,
And therefore would I pause awhile;

And, maidens, my spirit to cheer the more,
One gracious look and a sunny

smile;

For needs it were the heart be light,

That would dream of visions both rare and bright.

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