to declaim, in capital English, the passage that
begins--

"Benledi saw the Cross of Fire,
It glanced like lightning up Strathyre,
O'er dale and hill the summons flew,
Nor rest nor pause young Angus knew;
The tear that gathered in his eye
He left the mountain breeze to dry."

Mr. Wilson's book to which I have alluded is a collection of the
impressions written down by eminent visitors to the locality, from
Dorothy Wordsworth to Queen Victoria. Carlyle, who was in Perthshire in
1818, wrote the following note, which, though short, is finely
characteristic of him: "The Trossachs I found really grand and
impressive, Loch Katrine exquisitely so, my first taste of the beautiful
in scenery. Not so, any of us, the dirty, smoky farm-hut at the
entrance, with no provision in it but bad oatcakes and unacceptable
whisky, or the Mrs. Stewart who somewhat royally presided over it, and
dispensed these dainties, expecting to be flattered like an
independency, as well as paid like an innkeeper." The foregoing note, by
itself, is good value for the cost of Mr. Wilson's book (two shillings,
namely), and raises regrets that the author of _Sartor_ did not travel
oftener through the Land of Cakes. (The only other place in the
Highlands where I have heard Carlyle spoken of, is Kyleakin in Skye,
where he was the guest of Lady Ashburton, and where (as the natives
say), the cocks and hens had to be removed out of ear-shot for his
convenience.)

One of Mr. Wilson's stories (contributed by a lady) is apposite at the
present time, when so much is being heard of women's rights. Glengyle, a
district of the Trossachs, was once _entirely ruled_ by a number of
women, who constituted a sort of High Court with women as Judge and
Jury. "The most notorious case which they dealt with, and which probably
led to their downfall through drawing the ridicule of the country upon
them, was a case of horse-stealing. The accused man had been seen riding
furiously away on someone else's horse, and all evidence pointed to his
guilt. To the astonishment of the outsiders, the jury returned a verdict
of 'not guilty,' and the Judge on summing up declared the horse was the
culprit, as it had run away with the man. _She condemned the unfortunate
animal to be hanged, and hanged it was, while the man got off scot
free._"

LOCHFYNE-SIDE.

None of the mainland counties of Scotland can boast of such wonderful
ramifications of sea and loch as the