The explosion was so vast that it was heard 20 miles all around; and glass windows at the distance of ten miles were found to shake, and many of them to be broken.

The ground on each side of the way from Edinburgh to Stirling is, in general, in a high state of cultivation: but what can induce the proprietors of Falkirk Muir, as well as many other parts both in Scotland and England, to permit such large tracts of improvable land to lie in an uncultivated state, is more than I know. Immense tracts of uncultivated land, occurring every 20 or 30 miles, is a disgrace both to the proprietors and the legislature; and, if the proprietors, and petty fewers in burghs cannot agree about the division and enclosure of lands belonging to such burgh or parish, why does not the legislature divide it for them, and bind them over either to improve or sell it?

At Stirling I rested a few days; my poney, which I had bought, being fatigued, and he and I having already become attached to one another. My first object was, to see the view from the castle, which is a nobly sublime prospect that words can scarcely express. On the north-west you see Ben Lomond raising his head sublime, and appearing as the father of the other mountains. On the east appears the beautiful windings of the Firth; the hill of Dumayat terminating the verdant Aichil hills; and the circumjacent country, as far as the eye can reach.

The castle, whose history is well known, and which has stood many sieges, not only when Scotland and England were enemies, but when the Scots were at variance with one another, seems nothing now but

a species of barracks for soldiers and invalids. It is built on a high rock sloping towards the east, but, on the west side, more than 100 feet in perpendicular height. However ludicrous it may appear, yet certain it is, that, as many who were killed here during the year 1745, were buried without coffins, so when some gentlemen were viewing the burying ground, a few days after a number of men had been buried, they found some of the dead scarcely covered, and the points of some of their noses actually peeping through the ground; which reminds us of the practice of some parishes, both in Scotland and England, that drop paupers out of the shell, or coffin, in which they are carried to the grave; thus making one coffin serve year after year in the parish. How far those church-wardens and parish officers who are thus economical, with regard to coffins, are so with regard to parish feasts, I shall not pretend to determine.

Stirling is noted for its cottons, shalloons, camblets, and other woollen goods; and so famous has it been for its tartans, that, I believe, the Prince of Wales has a dress of it, and prefers its tartans to all others.

There is no accounting for prejudices. The Chinese prefer dog's flesh to every other. The Tartars think none so good as that of horses, and some, in our own country are to be found who prefer puppy pies to every other. It is no uncommon thing to see dockweed on their tables in Russia, as a salad, in preference to lettuce. The Germans eat snails, and even fatten them after they have gathered them: but what will you say to see a man growing sick at the appearance, and holding the very sight of cheese in abhor

rence? When I saw this take place at the inn, in Stirling, and one run out when cheese appeared, and refused to come in till it was carried away, I thought it affectation, like that of the lady that generally continued half an hour picking a duck's foot, arguing that there was nothing on earth more pleasant. I thought him affected, but I found I was mistaken; and that he not only had an utter abhorrence, but often fainted at the sight of both cheese and eggs.

We are informed that there have been many battles lately, and a great revolution in China, in consequence of a change of opinion respecting religion; that the Bramins in India find it impossible to bring the Gentoos to be of the same opinion respecting the great spirit; and that there are as many different modes of worship among the Turks, and opinions respecting Mahomet, as there are provinces in the empire: but, I suppose, there are scarcely any where on the face of the earth, in an equal circle of society, a greater variety of opinions respecting religion to be found, than in this town and neighbourhood. Here are Papists, Churchmen, and Highflyers; Cameronians, Glassites, Episcopalians Independents, Whitfieldites, Burghers, Antiburghers, Unitarians, Arminians, Socinians, Universal Redemptionists, Calvinists, Haldanites, Missionaries, &c. &c. In short they dispute here, and wrangle and contend in religious matters about they know not what. The frivolity of their disputes is sometimes apparent even to the zealots themselves. Unitarian Clergyman wished to get the stipend of a Baptist congregation. He tried to instil his doctrines into them, and they were no less zealous to

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convert him. At length, they compromised matters. The Unitarian consented to be re-baptized, and the Congregationalists to acquiesce in his opinions respecting the trinity. An Anabaptist congregation here disputed for years, and took one another by the ears, because, in extremely cold weather, a lady had been baptized in water that had been a little warm. The imagination and the passions of the people often magnify trifles into matters, of importance. Indeed so enthusiastic are some of them, that Mr. H――ne, a gentleman in the neighbourhood, who had an estate worth some thousands a year, sold it lately; and, excepting a trifling annuity he has settled on his wife and children, has expended the whole of the money in building churches, and establishing a new set of religious opinions: he is dubbed with the title of reverend, and attaches himself solely to the support of his party. His brother, a rich man, has also assumed the clerical character; and, in imitation of the apostles of old, they go about preaching what they call the Gospel. Indeed such is the influence of these gentlemen, that they have induced some of the established clergy to adopt their tenets.

So powerful is the contagious zeal of the missionaries, that it has made its way even into the central or inland Highlands, where little more of religion was known or cared for, than a mixture of Druidical with Christian rites or ceremonies. About 50 years ago, the Glassites, otherwise called Sandima-. nians, sent missionaries from Perth into Athol and Bredalbane, to propagate their doctrines; but they were only laughed at by the Highlanders, and told that they

minded none of those things, which they considered as the business only of the minister. Not so Mr. Haldane's missionaries. The minister of a certain parish in the Presbytery of Dunkeld, and all his family, have been seized with the enthusiasm of the missionaries almost to phrenzy. Not only the minister, but his wife and daughter go about the country teizing their neighbours, particularly clergymen and their families, about the state of their souls. Miss St, animated by the zeal of making converts, paid a visit to a neighbouring clergyman distinguished by learning, genius, and every virtue. This was the Rev. Dr. Thomas Bisset, late minister of Logie Rait. The lady had no sooner entered the manse, and been seated in the parlour, than she told the minister that she had come, "expressly to see if he was in the way to heaven:" The doctor replied, that he had kept his soul in his own charge for 69 years and a quarter, and that for the short time he might live longer, he did not intend to put it into trust. The circumstance that occasioned this anxiety about the doctor's salvation on the part of Miss S――t, was, the practical tenor of his discourses from the pulpit: of both the nature and the effects of which, very different from those of fanatical, or as it is commonly called methodistical preaching, the following anecdote, of which I am well assured, by an eye witness, is an instance. The minister had been preaching to his congregation against not only stealing, but all manner of fraud, circumvention, and roguery. A little after he had returned to the manse, a servant came and told him that Rob Roy was at the door, and wanted to speak to him. This was a noted