as conducted to my
apartment in a distant part of the building. I must own, that when I
heard door after door shut, after my conductor had retired, I began to
consider myself as too far from the living, and somewhat too near the
dead. We had passed through what is called 'the King's Room,' a vaulted
apartment, garnished with stags' antlers and similar trophies of the
chase, and said by tradition to be the spot of Malcolm's murder, and I
had an idea of the vicinity of the castle chapel. In spite of the truth
of history, the whole night scene in Macbeth's castle rushed at once
upon my mind, and struck my imagination more forcibly than even when I
have seen its terrors represented by the late John Kemble and his
inimitable sister. In a word, I experienced sensations which, though not
remarkable either for timidity or superstition, did not fail to affect
me to the point of being disagreeable, while they were mingled at the
same time with a strange and indescribable kind of pleasure."

Externally, the building is quaint and singular enough; tall and gaunt,
crested with innumerable little pepper box turrets and conical towers,
like an old French chateau.

Besides the tragedy of Macbeth, another story of still more melancholy
interest is connected with it, which a pen like that of Hawthorne, might
work up with gloomy power.

In 1537 the young and beautiful Lady Glamis of this place was actually
tried and executed for witchcraft. Only think, now! what capabilities in
this old castle, with its gloomy pine shades, quaint architecture, and
weird associations, with this bit of historic verity to start upon.

Walter Scott says, there is in the castle a secret chamber; the entrance
to which, by the law of the family, can be known only to three persons
at once--the lord of the castle, his heir apparent, and any third
person whom they might choose to take into their confidence. See, now,
the materials which the past gives to the novelist or poet in these old
countries. These ancient castles are standing romances, made to the
author's hands. The castle started a talk upon Shakspeare, and how much
of the tragedy he made up, and how much he found ready to his hand in
tradition and history. It seems the story is all told in Holingshed's
Chronicles; but his fertile mind has added some of the most thrilling
touches, such as the sleep walking of Lady Macbeth. It always seemed to
me that this tragedy had more of the melancholy majesty and p