e transfigures into Wholes, and all day
long, from morn till dewy eve, he is preceded, as he walks along, by
landscapes retiring in their perfection, one and all of them the birth
of his own inspired spirit. All non-essentials do of themselves drop off
and disappear--all the characteristics of the scenery range themselves
round a centre recognised by the inner sense that cannot err--and thus
it is that "beauty pitches her tents before him"--that sublimity
companions the pilgrim in the waste wilderness--and grandeur for his
sake keeps slowly sailing or settling in the clouds. With such pictures
has our Gallery been so thickly hung round for many years, that we have
often thought there was not room for one other single frame; yet a
vacant space has always been found for every new _chef-d'oeuvre_ that
came to add itself to our collection--and the light from that cupola so
distributes itself that it falls wherever it is wanted--wherever it is
wanted not how tender the shadow! or how solemn the gloom!

Why, we are now in Glen-Etive--and sitting with our sketch-book at the
mouth of our Tent. Our oft-repeated passionate prayer,

"O, for a lodge in some vast wilderness!"

has once more, after more than twenty years' absence, in this haunt of
our fanciful youth and imaginative manhood, been granted, and
Christopher, he thinks, could again bound along these cliffs like a
deer. Ay, well-nigh quarter of a century has elapsed since we pitched
this self-same snow-white Tent amid the purple heather, by the Linn of
Dee. How fleetly goes winnowing on the air even the weariest waving of
Time's care-laden wings! A few yellow weather-stains are on the
canvass--but the pole is yet sound--or call it rather mast--for we have
hoisted our topgallant,

"And lo! the silver cross, to Scotland dear,"

languidly lifts itself up, an ineffectual streamer, in the fitful
morning breezes!

Bold son, or bright daughter of England! hast thou ever seen a SCOTTISH
THRISSLE? What height are you--Captain of the Grenadier Guards? "Six
feet four on my stocking-soles." Poo--a dwarf! Stand up with your back
to that stalk. Tour head does not reach above his waist--he hangs high
over you--"his radious croun of rubies." There's a Flower! dear to Lady
Nature above all others, saving and excepting the Rose, and he is the
Rose's husband--the Guardian Genii of the land consecrated the Union,
and it has been blest. Eyeing the sun like an angry star that will