habituated to picturable scenery, and especially one which has been accustomed to produce it, will discover beauties in the midst of deformities, more readily, than one which is inexperienced; yet in complicated cases, the keenest cannot decide at sight.

THIS may account, in some measure at least, for the "monotony and baldness," complained of in MR. BROWN's manner. Towards the latter part of his practice, Mr. B. had but little time to bestow on any one of the numerous places he was engaged in: if obvious beauties struck him at sight, in the fortuitous scenery of the place to be improved, he no doubt retained them; but he had not time to search for beauties among deformities; nor if he had detected them, had he an opportunity to attend to their developement: he could not be in every place, at the time of foliation or discolouring of the Jeaves; nor had he leisure to stand, in person, to watch the effect of the fall of each tree, and thereby determine the fate of the next: and, being thus unable to unravel the knot, he might sometimes cut it: While at STOWE, BLENHEIM, and FISHERWICK, where he had leisure to attend personally to the minutiæ, he produced a richness of scenery, which shews that he had great abilities in his pro*fession.

SECTION THE THIRD.

MINUTES IN PERTHSHIRE.

THE last place, to which the same pursuit led was TAYMOUTH, the principal residence of the EARL OF BREADALBANE, in PERthshire.

DESCRIPTION OF THE SITE.

TAYMOUTH is situated in the center of the

Southern Highlands, among the loftiest and most savage of the Grampian mountains; but in a fertile and spacious valley,-the head of STRATH TAY, -the garden of the Highlands.

THE upper part of the valley, above the grounds of Taymouth, is occupied by LOCH TAY, and its fertile banks; overlooked, on one side, by the HILL OF LAWERS, and, at the further extremity is seen, in a striking point of view, BEN-MORE; mountains which rank among the very first in the island. VOL. I.

Сс

THE base of the valley is about a mile in width, and the culturable lands, which hang on the lower margins of its mountain sides, about a mile more. Above these, lines of green mountain pasture succeed; but their greenness is presently lost in the heath of the mountains on mountains, which rise on either side of the valley; especially on the North.

THESE MOUNTAINS, though often steep, are seldom broken or rocky;-except the heads of the Farragan, Schehallion, and Glenly on hills, which are in the highest style of mountain scenery. But they are hid, in a great measure, from the grounds of Taymouth, by a beautiful hillock, or minor mountain, DRUMMOND HILL, which rises steeply on every side out of the base of the valley (here dilated), and skreens them on the North.

THE RIVER TAY, which receives its name from the Lake, and is, at its efflux, a river of the third or fourth magnitude of rivers in this island, takes a winding course through the base of the valley, which has evidently been formed by water: for although its surface, at present, is uneven; lying in level stages, one higher than another, according to the period of time at which each has been formed; the highest stages being not less than thirty or forty feet above the present bed of the river; yet

each stage is of the same gravelly loam, which constitutes the soils of all the "haughs" or riverformed lands of the Highlands.

But the time and manner, in which the higher stages have been formed, seems difficult to be accounted for; unless it were done primevally; when the mountains and vallies themselves were formed; or, during some extraordinary convulsion, since that period. In Glenlyon, a narrower and longer valley, there are stages of land, evidently waterformed, which cannot be less than forty or fifty feet above the present bed of the Lyon*.

THE lowest stages of the lands of Taymouth rise only a few feet above the water, in the time of floods; which, being regulated by the extensive surface of the lake, do not rise to a great height.

THE HOUSE is situated on the largest of these lower levels, which is nearly encompassed by the river; the buildings standing in the center of a subpeninsula, which, in outline, resembles the section of a bell, and which forms part of a deer park that contains some hundred acres.

These heights, however, are merely estimated by the eye, and may not be accurate.

FORMERLY, a sumptuous garden stretched out in straight lines, from the front of the house; vying with Moor Park in symmetry and sweetness;—if one may judge from the description of the one ;* and a tolerable representation, which has been preserved of the other. The lines themselves have long been erased; the park now embracing three sides of the house; an ancient Chateau modernized.

be

Ar a short distance from the North front of the house, rises a stately avenue of Limes,-the tallest and finest we have seen. But the most extraordinary circumstance of this avenue (if it may so termed), is its form or ground plot; which is that of the letter; occupying the crown of the peninsula; the semicircular part having, it is probable, traced the banks of the river, at the time of forming a licence this, which, a century ago, must have been audaciously heretical,

THE late EARL OF BREADALBANE, who possessed the estate, and made Taymouth his principal residence during a length of years, made great alterations in the place; and, considering the day in which they were done (near half a

* See SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE's Account of MOOR PARK in page 216 of this Volume.