the vast and beautiful landscape, including the city of Edinburgh, the Firth of Forth, with its "emerald islands," and the winding shores of Fife in the distance. Blackford hill, a little to the north of us is the spot mentioned in "Marmion:"

"Still on the spot Lord Marmion stay'd,
For fairer scene he ne'er survey'd,

When sated with the martial show
That peopled all the plains below,
The wandering eye could o'er it go,
And mark the distant city glow
With gloomy splendor red;

For on the smoke wreaths, huge and slow,
That round her sable turrets flow,
The morning beams were shed,
And tinged them with a lustre proud,
Like that which streaks a thunder cloud;
Such dusky grandeur clothed the height,
Where the huge castle holds its state,
And all the steep slope down,

Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky,
Piled deep and massy, close and high,
Mine own romantic town!

But northward far with purer blaze
On Ochil mountains fell the rays,
And as each heathy top they kiss'd,
It gleamed a purple amethyst.
Yonder the shores of Fife you saw;
Here Preston Bay, and Berwick-Law;
And broad between them roll'd
The gallant Firth the eye might note,
Whose islands on its bosom float,

Like emeralds chased in gold."

Descending from the hill we resume our journey, musing on the days of old, when "shrill fife and martial drum" awakened the echoes of these peace.

ful vales, now resounding with the melody of birds. How delightful the gushing music of those skylarks, which descends upon us from "neaven's gates," like a shower of "embodied gladness." Why, it seems as if a hundred of them were soaring "i' the lift," and singing with a joyous energy, akin to that of the blessed spirits in heaven. To me, the lark is the noblest of all birds, the most pure and spirit-like of all aerial songsters. In Scotland, too, she seems to sing the sweetest and strongest. Others may praise the nightingale, if they please, and my own heart has often thrilled, to hear, at the "witching time of night," her wild and melancholy strain from some English copsewood, or Italian grove. But nothing so rich and beautiful. so spirit-like and divine ever greeted my ear as the glad singing of the heaven-aspiring lark. It seemed as if the very spirit of song had taken wings, and were ascending to God, in a flood of melody. But listen to the following strains written by Shelley under the inspiration of the sky-lark's song:

Hail to thee, blithe spirit,
Bird thou never wert,

That from heaven or near it

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest,

Like a cloud of fire!

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing, still dost soar; and soaring, ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an embodied joy, whose race has just begun.

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art, we know not.

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,

Singing hymns unbidden

Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain awakened flowers,

All that ever was

Joyous and fresh and clear thy music doth surpass.

Teach me, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine:

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal

Or triumphant chaunt,

Match'd with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?

What fields or waves or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be:

Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee:

Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety

Waking or asleep

Thou of death must deem,

Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,

Or how could thy note flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter,

With some pain is fraught:

Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought.

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures.

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness,

That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

Inferior to this, but still very beautiful, more natural, and more especially Scottish, are the following lines to the Skylark by the "Ettrick Shepherd:"

Bird of the wilderness,

Blithesome and cumberless,

Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling place

O to abide in the desert with thee!
Wild is thy lay and loud,

Far in the downy cloud,

Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.
Where on thy dewy wing,

Where art thou journeying?

Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.

O'er fell and fountain sheen,

O'er moor and mountain green,
O'er the red streamer that heralds the day,
Over the cloudlet dim,

Over the rainbow's rim,

Musical cherub, soar singing away!

Then when the gloaming comes

Low in the heather blooms,

Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling place

O to abide in the desert with thee!

Filled with these pleasant images, we pursue our journey, and wind along the edge of the Pentland Hills, with their thrilling memories of "Auld-langsyne;" pass the "bonnie braes" of Woodhouselee, and reach old Glencorse Church, "bosomed high ''mong tufted trees;" cross "a bonnie burn," called "Logan Water," and get a glimpse of "House of Muir," in the vicinity of which the old Scottish Covenanters met with a terrible slaughter, from General Dalzell of Binns, the "bluidy Dalzell," as the Scots call him to this day. Passing through the humble village of Silver Burn, we reach Newhall,