men, either come with Mr King, or going to the meeting to-morrow. There was some pretence to seize Mr King, being a vagrant preacher, and, I think, intercommuned; but there was no law for seizing the rest, they not being in arms, or any thing to be laid to their charge.

“When this was known, some who escaped, and the people near by, began to entertain thoughts of rescuing Mr King; and some of them went toward Glasgow, acquainting their friends by the way; and hearing of the meeting towards Lowdonhill, went thither, expecting as sistance from thence.

"Meanwhile Claverhouse was likewise advertised of that conventicle designed next day, and resolved to go and disperse them, and come from thence to Glasgow with his prisoners. I am told he was dissuaded, by some of his friends, from going thither, and assured there would be a good many resolute men in arms there; yet, trusting to his own troop, and some others of horse and dragoons he had with him, he would go.

66

Accordingly, upon the Sabbath morning, June 1. (1679) he marched very early from Hamiltoun to Stratheven town, about five miles south, and carried his prisoners with him, which was happy for them. They were bound two and two of them together, and his men drove them before them like so many sheep. When they came to Stratheven, they had distinct accounts that Mr Tho mas Douglas was to preach that day near Lowdonhill, three or four iniles westward from Stratheven: and thither Claverhouse resolves to march straight with his party and prisoners.

"Public worship was begun by Mr Douglas, when the accounts came to them that Claverhouse and his men were coming upon them, and had Mr King and others, their friends, prisoners. Upon this, finding evil was determined against them, all who had arms drew out from the rest of the meeting, and resolved to go and meet the soldiers, and prevent their dismissing the meeting; and, if possible, relieve Mr King and the other priso

ners.

"They got together about forty horse and one hundred and fifty or two hundred foot, very ill provided with ammunition and untrained, but hearty and abundantly brisk for action, and came up with Claverhouse and his party in a muir, near a place called Drumclog, from whence this rencounter hath its name.

"This little army of raw undisciplined countrymen, who had no experience in the business of fighting, neither had they officers of skill to lead them, very bravely stood Claverhouse's first fire, and returned it with much gallantry; and after a short, but very close and warm engagement, the soldiers gave way, were entirely defeat, and the prisoners rescued. Claverhouse and his men fled, and were pursued a mile or two.

"In the engagement and pursuit there were about twenty, some say forty, of the soldiers killed, and Claverhouse himself was in great hazard, had his horse shot under him, and very narrowly escaped. Several of the other officers were wounded, and some of the soldiers taken prisoners; whom, having disarmed, they dismissed

without any farther injury, having no prison-house to put them in."---WODROW, Vol. II.

p. 46.

With, here and there, a flower

Of deep-tinged purple, &c.-P. 16. l. 5, 6. Pyramidal Orchis.

Down the double row

Of venerable elms is hewn.-P. 17. l. 12, 13. "The avenue has a most striking effect, from the very circumstance of its being strait; no other figure can give that image of a grand Gothic aisle, with its natural columns and vaulted roof, whose general mass fills the eye, while the particular parts insensibly steal from it in a long gradation of perspective.* The broad solemn shade adds a twilight calm to the whole, and makes it, above all other places, most suited to meditation. To that also its straitness contributes; for when the mind is disposed to turn inwardly on itself, any serpentine line would distract the attention.

"The destruction of so many of these venerable approaches, is a fatal consequence of the present excessive

"By long gradation I do not mean a great length of avenue; I perfectly agree with Mr Burke, that colonades and avenues of trees, of a moderate length, are, without comparison, far grander, than when they are suffered to run to immense distances.”

horror of strait lines. Sometimes, indeed, avenues do cut through the middle of very beautiful and varied ground, with which the stiffness of their form but ill accords, and where it were greatly to be wished they had never been planted, as other trees, in various positions and groups, would probably have sprung up, in and near the place they occupy: But, being there, it may often be doubtful whether they ought to be destroyed; for, whenever such a line of trees is taken away, there must be a long vacant space that will separate the grounds, with their old original trees, on each side of it; and young trees planted in the vacancy, will not, in half a century, connect the whole together. As to saving a few trees of the line itself for that purpose, I own I never saw it done, that it did not produce a contrary effect, and that the spot was not haunted by the ghost of the departed avenue."-PRICE'S Essay on the Picturesque, Vol. I. 270-274.

Down crash,

Upon the grass, the orchard trees, &c.

P. 17.1. 13, 14. Price, after condemning the destruction of old gardens, adds, "I may perhaps have spoken more feelingly on this subject, from having done myself what I so condemn in others,-destroyed an old-fashioned garden. It was not indeed in the high style of those I have described, but it had many of the same circumstances, and which had their effect. As I have long since perceived the advantage which I could have made of them, and

how much I could have added to that effect; how well I could, in parts, have mixed the modern style, and have altered and concealed many of the stiff and glaring formalities, I have long regretted its destruction. I destroyed it, not from disliking it; on the contrary, it was a sacrifice I made, against my own sensations, to the prevailing opinion."---Vol. II. p. 142, 143.

Around the whole a line vermicular.-P. 18. l. 5. "The next leading feature to the clump,* in this circular system, (and one which, in romantic situations, rivals it in the power of creating deformity,) is the belt. Its sphere, however, is more contracted: Clumps, placed like beacons on the summits of hills, alarm the picturesque traveller many miles off, and warn him of his approach to the enemy; the belt lies more in ambuscade, and the wretch who falls into it, and is obliged to walk the whole round in company with the improver, will allow, that a snake, with its tail in its mouth, is, compara

* "I remember hearing, that, when Mr Brown was high sheriff, some facetious person observing his attendants straggling, called out to him, Clump your javelin men. What was intended merely as a piece of ridicule, might have served as a very instructive lesson to the object of it, and have taught Mr Brown, that such figures should be confined to bodies of men drilled for the purposes of formal parade, and not extended to the loose and airy shapes of vegetation."