me before we reached Crieff, a small town, though
larger than Dunkeld.

* * * * *

_Saturday_, _September_ 10_th_.--Rose early, and departed without
breakfast. We were to pass through one of the most celebrated vales of
Scotland, Strath Erne. We found it a wide, long, and irregular vale,
with many gentlemen's seats under the hills, woods, copses, frequent
cottages, plantations, and much cultivation, yet with an intermixture of
barren ground; indeed, except at Killin and Dunkeld, there was always
something which seemed to take from the composure and simplicity of the
cultivated scenes. There is a struggle to overcome the natural
barrenness, and the end not attained, an appearance of something doing or
imperfectly done, a passing with labour from one state of society into
another. When you look from an eminence on the fields of Grasmere Vale,
the heart is satisfied with a simple undisturbed pleasure, and no less,
on one of the green or heathy dells of Scotland, where there is no
appearance of change to be, or having been, but such as the seasons make.
Strath Erne is so extensive a vale that, had it been in England, there
must have been much inequality, as in Wensley Dale; but at Wensley there
is a unity, a softness, a melting together, which in the large vales of
Scotland I never perceived. The difference at Strath Erne may come
partly from the irregularity, the undefined outline, of the hills which
enclose it; but it is caused still more by the broken surface, I mean
broken as to colour and produce, the want of hedgerows, and also the
great number of new fir plantations. After some miles it becomes much
narrower as we approach nearer the mountains at the foot of the lake of
the same name, Loch Erne.

Breakfasted at a small public-house, a wretchedly dirty cottage, but the
people were civil, and though we had nothing but barley cakes we made a
good breakfast, for there were plenty of eggs. Walked up a high hill to
view the seat of Mr. Dundas, now Lord Melville--a spot where, if he have
gathered much wisdom from his late disgrace or his long intercourse with
the world, he may spend his days as quietly as he need desire. It is a
secluded valley, not rich, but with plenty of wood: there are many pretty
paths through the woods, and moss huts in different parts. After leaving
the cottage where we breakfasted the country was very pleasing, yet still
with a want of richness; but this wa