the matter; which doubts and scruples had begun to infect our aunt, when we took our departure from Edinburgh.

We passed through Linlithgow, where there was an elegant royal palace, which is now gone to decay, as well as the town itself. This too is pretty much the case with Stirling, though it still boasts of a fine old castle, in which the kings of Scotland were wont to reside in their minority. But Glasgow is the pride of Scotland, and, indeed, it might very well pass for an elegant and flourishing city in any part of Christendom. There we had the good fortune to be received into the house of Mr. Moore, an eminent surgeon, to whom we were recommended by one of our friends at Edinburgh; and, truly, he could not have done us more essential service. Mr. Moore is a merry facetious companion, sensible and shrewd, with a considerable fund of humour; and his wife an agreeable woman, well bred, kind, and obliging. Kindness, which I take to be the essence of good-nature and humanity, is the distinguishing characteristic of the Scotch ladies in their own country. Our landlord shewed us every thing, and introduced us to all the world at Glasgow; where, through his recommendation, we were complimented with the freedom of the town. Considering the trade and opulence of this place, it cannot but abound with gaiety and diversions. Here is a great number of young fellows that rival the youth of the capital in spirit and expence; and I was soon convinced that all the female beauties of Scotland were not assembled at the hunters’ ball in Edinburgh. The town of Glasgow flourishes in learning, as well as in commerce. Here is an university, with professors in all the different branches of science, liberally endowed, and judiciously chosen. It was vacation time when I passed, so that I could not entirely satisfy my curiosity; but their mode of education is certainly preferable to ours in some respects. The students are not left to the private instruction of tutors; but taught in public schools or classes, each science by its particular professor or regent.

My uncle is in raptures with Glasgow. He not only visited all the manufactures of the place, but made excursions all round, to Hamilton, Paisley, Renfrew, and every other place within a dozen miles, where there was any thing remarkable to be seen in art or nature. I believe the exercise, occasioned by these jaunts, was of service to my sister Liddy, whose appetite and spirits begin to revive. Mrs. Tabitha displayed her attractions as usual, and actually believed she had entangled one Mr. Maclellan, a rich inkle-manufacturer, in her snares; but when matters came to an explanation, it appeared that his attachment was altogether spiritual, founded upon an intercourse of devotion, at the meeting of Mr. John Wesley; who, in the course of his evangelical mission, had come hither in person. At length, we set out for the banks of Lough- Lomond, passing through the little borough of Dumbarton, or (as my uncle will have it) Dunbritton, where there is a castle, more curious than any thing of the kind I had ever seen. It is honoured with a particular description by the elegant Buchanan, as an arx inexpugnabilis, and, indeed, it must have been impregnable by the antient manner of besieging. It is a rock of considerable extent, rising with a double top, in an angle formed by the confluence of two rivers, the Clyde and the Leven; perpendicular and inaccessible on all sides, except in one place where the entrance is fortified; and there is no rising ground in the neighbourhood from whence it could be damaged by any kind of battery.

From Dumbarton, the West Highlands appear in the form of huge, dusky mountains, piled one over another; but this prospect is not at all surprising to a native of Glamorgan. We have fixed our head-quarters at Cameron, a very neat country — house belonging to commissary Smollett, where we found every sort of accommodation we could desire. It is situated like a Druid’s temple, in a grove of oak, close by the side of Lough-Lomond, which is a surprising body of pure transparent water, unfathomably deep in many places, six or seven miles broad, four and twenty miles in length, displaying above twenty green islands, covered with wood; some of them cultivated for corn, and many of them stocked with red deer. They belong to different gentlemen, whose seats are scattered along the banks of the lake, which are agreeably romantic beyond all conception. My uncle and I have left the women at Cameron, as Mrs. Tabitha would by no means trust herself again upon the water, and to come hither it was necessary to cross a small inlet of the sea, in an open ferryboat. This country appears more and more wild and savage the further we advance; and the people are as different from the Lowland Scots, in their looks, garb, and language, as the mountaineers of Brecknock are from the inhabitants of Herefordshire.