some years past, been doing
all we could to make ourselves ridiculous, by claiming for our capital
the name of Modern Athens, and talking all manner of nonsense about a
city which stands nobly on its own proper foundation; while we have kept
our mouths comparatively shut about the beauty of our hills and vales,
and the rational happiness that everywhere overflows our native land.
Our character is to be found in the country; and therefore, gentle
reader, behold along with us a specimen of Scottish scenery. It is not
above some four miles long--its breadth somewhere about a third of its
length; a fair oblong, sheltered and secluded by a line of varied
eminences, on some of which lies the power of cultivation, and over
others the vivid verdure peculiar to a pastoral region; while, telling
of disturbed times past for ever, stand yonder the ruins of an old
fortalice or keep, picturesque in its deserted decay. The plough has
stopped at the edge of the profitable and beautiful coppice-woods, and
encircled the tall elm-grove. The rocky pasturage, with its clovery and
daisied turf, is alive with sheep and cattle--its briery knolls with
birds--its broom and whins with bees--and its wimpling burn with trouts
and minnows glancing through the shallows, or leaping among the cloud of
injects that glitter over its pools. Here and there a cottage--not above
twenty in all--one low down in the holm, another on a cliff beside the
waterfall: that is the mill--another breaking the horizon in its more
ambitious station--and another far up at the hill-foot, where there is
not a single tree, only shrubs and brackens. On a bleak day, there is
but little beauty in such a glen; but when the sun is cloudless, and all
the light serene, it is a place where poet or painter may see visions
and dream dreams, of the very age of gold. At such seasons, there is a
home-felt feeling of humble reality, blending with the emotions of
imagination. In such places, the low-born high-souled poets of old
breathed forth their songs, and hymns, and elegies--the undying lyrical
poetry of the heart of Scotland.

Take the remotest Cottage first in order, HILLFOOT, and hear who are its
inmates--the Schoolmaster and his spouse. The schoolhouse stands on a
little unappropriated piece of ground--at least it seems to be so--quite
at the head of the glen; for there the hills sink down on each side, and
afford an easy access to the seat of learning from two neighbouring
vales,