w of beautiful ancient oaks,
and Mr. S. said, "There, we are in the grounds of the old Black Douglas
family!" I felt every nerve shiver. I remembered the dim melodies of
the Lady of the Lake. Bothwell's lord was the lord of this castle, whose
beautiful ruins here adorn the banks of the Clyde.

Whatever else we have or may have in America, we shall never have the
wild, poetic beauty of these ruins. The present noble possessors are
fully aware of their worth as objects of taste, and, therefore, with the
greatest care are they preserved. Winding walks are cut through the
grounds with much ingenuity, and seats or arbors are placed at every
desirable and picturesque point of view.

To the thorough-paced tourist, who wants to _do_ the proprieties in the
shortest possible time, this arrangement is undoubtedly particularly
satisfactory; but to the idealist, who would like to roam, and dream,
and feel, and to come unexpectedly on the choicest points of view, it is
rather a damper to have all his raptures prearranged and foreordained
for him, set down in the guide book and proclaimed by the guide, even
though it should be done with the most artistic accuracy.

Nevertheless, when we came to the arbor which commanded the finest view
of the old castle, and saw its gray, ivy-clad walls, standing forth on a
beautiful point, round which swept the brown, dimpling waves of the
Clyde, the indescribable sweetness, sadness, wildness of the whole scene
would make its voice heard in our hearts. "Thy servants take pleasure in
her dust, and favor the stones thereof," said an old Hebrew poet, who
must have felt the inexpressibly sad beauty of a ruin. All the splendid
phantasmagoria of chivalry and feudalism, knights, ladies, banners,
glittering arms, sweep before us; the cry of the battle, the noise of
the captains, and the shouting; and then in contrast this deep
stillness, that green, clinging ivy, the gentle, rippling river, those
weeping birches, dipping in its soft waters--all these, in their quiet
loveliness, speak of something more imperishable than brute force.

The ivy on the walls now displays a trunk in some places as large as a
man's body. In the days of old Archibald the Grim, I suppose that ivy
was a little, weak twig, which, if he ever noticed, he must have thought
the feeblest and slightest of all things; yet Archibald has gone back to
dust, and the ivy is still growing on. Such force is there in gentle
things.

I have often