which I
heard sung by one of the young ladies of Edgeworthstown in 1825. I do
not know that it has been printed.] we felt no impatience at the slow
and almost creeping pace with which our conductor proceeded along
General Wade's military road, which never or rarely condescends to turn
aside from the steepest ascent, but proceeds right up and down hill,
with the indifference to height and hollow, steep or level, indicated by
the old Roman engineers. Still, however, the substantial excellence
of these great works--for such are the military highways in the
Highlands--deserved the compliment of the poet, who, whether he came
from our sister kingdom, and spoke in his own dialect, or whether he
supposed those whom he addressed might have some national pretension to
the second sight, produced the celebrated couplet,--

"Had you but seen these roads BEFORE they were made,
You would hold up your hands and bless General Wade."

Nothing, indeed, can be more wonderful than to see these wildernesses
penetrated and pervious in every quarter by broad accesses of the best
possible construction, and so superior to what the country could have
demanded for many centuries for any pacific purpose of commercial
intercourse. Thus the traces of war are sometimes happily accommodated
to the purposes of peace. The victories of Bonaparte have been without
results but his road over the Simplon will long be the communication
betwixt peaceful countries, who will apply to the ends of commerce
and friendly intercourse that gigantic work, which was formed for the
ambitious purpose of warlike invasion.

While we were thus stealing along, we gradually turned round the
shoulder of Ben Cruachan, and descending the course of the foaming and
rapid Awe, left behind us the expanse of the majestic lake which gives
birth to that impetuous river. The rocks and precipices which stooped
down perpendicularly on our path on the right hand exhibited a few
remains of the wood which once clothed them, but which had in later
times been felled to supply, Donald MacLeish informed us, the iron
foundries at the Bunawe. This made us fix our eyes with interest on one
large oak, which grew on the left hand towards the river. It seemed a
tree of extraordinary magnitude and picturesque beauty, and stood just
where there appeared to be a few roods of open ground lying among huge
stones, which had rolled down from the mountain. To add to the romance
of the situation, the sp