answer. A disciple of Kent had the cruelty to render this splendid old
mansion (the more modern part of which was the work of Inigo Jones)
more _parkish_, as he was pleased to call it; to raze all those
exterior defences, and bring his mean and paltry gravel-walk up to the
very door from which, deluded by the name, one might have imagined
Lady Macbeth (with the form and features of Siddons) issuing forth to
receive King Duncan. It is thirty years and upwards since I have seen
Glammis, but I have not yet forgotten or forgiven the atrocity which,
under pretence of improvement, deprived that lordly place of its
appropriate accompaniments,

'Leaving an ancient dome and towers like these
Beggar'd and outraged.'"[109]

[Footnote 109: Wordsworth's Sonnet on Neidpath Castle.]

The night he spent at the yet unprofaned Glammis in 1793 was, as he
elsewhere says, one of the "_two_ periods distant from each other" at
which he could recollect experiencing "that degree of superstitious
awe which his countrymen call _eerie_."

"The heavy pile," he writes, "contains much in its appearance,
and in the traditions connected with it, impressive to the
imagination. It was the scene of the murder of a Scottish King of
great antiquity--not indeed the gracious Duncan, with whom the
name naturally associates itself, but Malcolm II. It contains
also a curious monument of the peril of feudal times, being a
secret chamber, the entrance of which, by the law or custom of
the family, must only be known to three persons at once, namely,
the Earl of Strathmore, his heir-apparent, and any third person
whom they may take into their confidence. The extreme antiquity
of the building is vouched by the thickness of the walls, and the
wild straggling arrangement of the accommodation within doors. As
the late Earl seldom resided at Glammis, it was when I was there
but half furnished, and that with movables of great antiquity,
which, with the pieces of chivalric armor hanging on the walls,
greatly contributed to the general effect of the whole. After a
very hospitable reception from {p.198} the late Peter Proctor,
seneschal of the castle, I was conducted to my apartment in a
distant part of the building. I must own, that when I heard door
after door shut, after my conductor had retired, I began to
consider myself as too far fro