h of purity.

Our next trial is at Kilmichael, about three miles from Loch Gilp. The
churchyard is extremely fruitful in sculptured stones of various
kinds--some floral, others geometrical, with wild beasts, monsters, and
human figures. One of them was pointed out as the tomb of a member of
the house of Campbell, who bore the name of Thomas, and was a great
bard, and lived in London and other great cities--Thomas Campbell, in
short. It seems to be true that his ancestors were buried in Kilmichael
churchyard, but my informant seemed to struggle with an idea that the
stone covered with the sculpture of a far-past century had been really
raised to his honour. The next generation will probably assert this as a
fact. The genesis of such traditions is curious. The stone called Rob
Roy's tomb, which lies beside an ancient font in the churchyard of
Balquhidder, is a sculptured stone raised for some one who had probably
died in wealth and honour hundreds of years before Rob stole cattle.

By a slight ascent westward of the alluvial plain we reach Kilmartin, a
village with a large modern church. Its graveyard is graced with many
sculptured stones--twenty-five may be counted, conspicuous for their
rich carving and excellent preservation. On one or two of the latest in
date, there are knightly figures clad in chain-mail. A local antiquary
could probably trace these home to some worshipful families in the
neighbourhood, but there are others beyond the infancy of the oldest
authentic pedigrees. While the stones in the eastern counties are all of
extremely remote antiquity, offering no link of connection with later
times, these Highland specimens seem to carry their peculiarities with
modified variations through several centuries into times comparatively
late. There are among them stones bearing some types of extreme
antiquity, and others which undoubtedly proclaim themselves as no older
than the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. It is sometimes a difficult
task, in judging of antiquities, to make a sufficient allowance for the
spirit of imitation. There is nothing certainly more natural than that a
new tombstone should be made after the fashion of time-honoured
monuments, the pride of the graveyard in which it is to be placed. In
Kilmartin there are two decided imitations of the more ancient class of
the western sculptured stones. Though the symbols and decorations which
they bear are of ancient outline, the heavy, and at the same ti