guns; but if regularly invested in modern warfare, it
could not hold out many hours. To enumerate its sieges, dismantlings,
and repairs would occupy too much space. Among the most memorable of its
stormy annals, is its siege by Edward II. in 1301, for three months,
when it was battered with stones of two hundred pounds weight each,
thrown by engines, in the formation of which was used all the lead
from the monastery of St. Andrew's. It was last besieged in 1746 by the
Highlanders under Prince Charles. The chief parts of the building seen
in the Panorama are the additions by Queen Anne, the parliament-house,
(though not the unsightly, modern roof,) and the palace, a stately
and curious structure of hewn stone, and embellished with grotesque
sculpture. The latter building forms a quadrangle, the central court of
which is called the lion's den, from the king's lions being formerly
kept there. The whole is now used as barracks. From the Castle, looking
over the town, towards the east, is a vast plain, nearly 40 miles
in extent, called the Carse of Stirling, through which the Firth in
meandering, forms a number of peninsulas, in places approximating so
closely as to have an isthmus of only a few yards, the effect of which
in the picture, reminded us of the contrived intricacies of a child's
puzzle; in this direction is seen Alla, or Alloa, a thriving seaport
town, with a Gothic church, and celebrated for its excellent ale;
Clackmannan, a miserable town, where in a tower lived King Robert Bruce,
and where an old Jacobite lady knighted Burns with a sword which
belonged to Bruce, observing that she had a better right to do so than
_some folk_; Falkirk, known for its _trysts_, or markets, where
the country-people point out a battle-field, and a stream called the
Red Burn, from its running with blood on the day of the conflict; Bruce
lived near this spot, the view from which he said was not surpassed by
any he had seen in his travels: next lies the Firth of Forth, and the
country as far as Edinburgh and the Pentland Hills. Towards the south
stands the ancient village of St. Ninian's, and Bannockburn, the
battleground of the most celebrated and important contest that ever took
place between English and Scots; the Torwood, where till lately stood
a tree said to have sheltered Wallace; and the Carron, bounded by the
green hills of Campsie. Towards the west are the plains of Menteith,
a district, says Chambers, distinguished almost abo