scarcely knowing what to do, he arose, went to the parson of the parish, told him every circumstance,. and shewed him the hair with the scalp. The The parson, the elders, &c. of the parish, being assembled to consider of this mysterious affair, agreed that the devil must have had power over some dead body; and imagining it might be a woman of a suspicious character that had died lately, they went to the grave, and opening it, found the woman's body with some of her hair and scalp gone; and when they applied the scalp in the man's pocket, it exactly corresponded with what was wanting in her's. I smiled at this quotation, saying, that either there could be no such story in the books, or that it had been foisted in, when people, believing, amused themselves with such nonsense, and that none but men of warm imagination could believe it.-There is a story of an apparition as well authenticated in Dean Sherlock's Book on Death.

Alloa, which is a large and thriving village, has a considerable manufactory of glass, cottons, and woollen stuffs, and exports a good many coals. Though not a burgh, being populous and central, it is the place where the courts are held belonging to the county of Clackmannan, which, being but small, with Kinross, (in the same way as Cromarty with Nairn, and Bute with Caithness), sends a member to parliament alternately. Between Stirling and Alloa the Forth winds in so singular as well as beautiful a manner, that though it is but four miles between these two places by land, it is twenty-four by water.

About Alloa House, belonging to Erskine of

Mar, the extensive woods and pleasure grounds planted and laid out by the Earl of Mar, before the rebellion in 1715, seem nearly to agree with the plan of laying out pleasure grounds at the present day. When this extensive house was burnt, which unfortunately happened a few years ago, the tower of Alloa, which is contiguous, was saved by the door communicating with the house being built up with wet turf, in which, among a vast number of valuable articles, there is a painting of Mary, Queen of Scots, thought to be one of the best in existence.

I went next to view the castle of Clackmannan, built by Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, about the time of the famous battle of Bannockburn. I have seen the views from Edinburgh, Stirling, and Windsor Castles, as also from some of the highest hills in Scotland, England, and Wales; but, in my opinion, the view from the castle of Clackmannan is not inferior to any of them, from its relative situation in a low country; and yet its top being about one thousand feet above the level of the sea. If you look westward, you see Alloa, Stirling, the windings of the Forth, Ben Lomond, &c. and all around that way, almost as far as Glasgow. If you look southward and eastward, you see beautiful rising grounds in the form of a semicircle near thirty miles, including Airth, Grangemouth, the Canal, Dunipace, Falkirk, Carron Works, the shipping and towns, &c. &c. on each side of the Forth, as far as the eye can reach.

Having seen the golden plate given by George I. to Lord Lovat, who was afterwards heheaded, and which cost more than one thousand guineas, the great golden

font at Gordon Castle, that holds the water when any of the family are baptized, and the vast variety of gold and silver plate at Alloa House, and many other great houses in this part of the country, I was led to doubt whether, notwithstanding the immense quantities of gold and silver dug yearly out of the mines of Peru and Mexico, there be more gold and silver in the world now than there was in the times of the antient Greeks and Romans. From the account given in the Old Testament, gold and silver must have been extremely plenty in the days of Solomon. The antients had more statues of their gods in their houses and temples than are to be found of saints and angels in Roman Catholic countries, or among the idolaters of the east. Alexander the Great, we are told, had a seat of solid silver, covered with crimson, for each of four hundred commanders, when he entertained them. Lysimachus, of Babylon, having entertained the tyrant of the Babylonians with three hundred guests, gave every man a cup of gold of four pounds weight; and when Alexander the Great made his marriage feast at Susa, in Persia, he paid the debts of all his soldiers out of his own treasures, and presented every one of his guests, who were nine thousand in number, with a golden cup.

The Romans received yearly large quantities of silver, and if I mistake not, gold and silver also from Old Spain; so that, notwithstanding the gold and silver dug yearly out of the mines of Peru and Mexico, and collected from other parts, perhaps there was, two thousand years ago, as much gold and silver in circulation and in plate, as at pre

sent.

But, on this point, to descend from antient to later times: the quantity of gold plate in the possession of great families in Britain in the fourteenth century, may be conjectured from the equipage of the Lord James Douglas, when he set out from his own county of Angus, on an expedition, the object of which shall by and by be related. "Early in the spring of 1327, the Lord James Douglas having made provision of every thing that was proper for his expedition, embarked at the port of Montrose, and sailed directly for Sluys, in Flanders, in order to learn if any one were going beyond sea to Jerusalem, that he might join companies. He remained there twelve days, and would not set his foot on shore, but staid the whole time on board, where he kept a magnificent table with music of trumpets and drums, as if he had been the king of Scotland. His company consisted of one knight-banneret, and seven others of the most valiant knights of Scotland, without counting the rest of his household. His plate was of gold and silver, consisting of pots, basins, porrigers, cups, bottles, barrels, and other such things. He had likewise twenty-six young and gallant esquires of the best families of Scotland to wait on him; and all those who came to visit him were handsomely served with two sorts of wine and two sorts of spices, I mean those of a certain rank."

It may seem matter of wonder from whence so much gold and silver flowed in such considerable quantities into a country naturally so poor as Scotland, and in so remote a period. That a very considerable degree of wealth, civilization, and taste in

* Froissart's Chronicle, translated by J. Johnes, vol. i. p. 74,

the arts, had made its way to Scotland at this period, will not be called in question by any one who casts his eye on even the ruins of the edifices constructed about or before that time; the quantities of wheat and other grain furnished yearly to the monasteries; and the very vestiges of cultivation presented every where on the eastern side of both Scotland and the northern counties of England, in vast tracts of land formed into ridges, though now overrun with furze and heath. That side of the country was, for a long tract of years, under the dominion of the Picts, or Peights, called also Vichts, Wicks, or Wiggans, who, in comparison of the Celts, or Irish Scots, inhabiting the inland, mountainous, and western coasts, were a refined and polished people. The Pictish empire, if I may be allowed to use this magnificent term, in Scotland, was divided into two dominions, that of the Picts to the south of the Grampians, and that of the Picts extending from the river Dee over the lowlands of Aberdeenshire, Bamff, Murray, Inverness, Sutherlandshire, Caithness, and the Orkney and Shetland Isles. Both the northern and southern Picts sprung from Scandinavia, more particularly Norway.

The term of Picts, Peights (the name by which, they are called among the people of Scotland, who have a world of traditions concerning them at this day), Vichts, Wicks, and Wiggans, all literally signify PIRATES, or ROBBERS. When the king or chief

of

any northern and maritime nation and tribe was desirous of making provision for any spirited youth among his sons, he furnished him with a number of ships and brave followers, and committed him to the