Mac Nab, whose valuable services still continue to improve their beauty and importance. I was surprised to find myrtles and magnolias flourishing in the open air, and enduring this exposure with perfect impunity throughout the winter. The truth is, I believe, that though their winter is longer than ours, it is by no means equally severe. Snow is very rare at Edinburgh.

I have now recorded, faithfully, but capriciously, the principal impressions, which I received from a sojourn of exactly one fortnight in the capital of Scotland.

It was my full intention to visit Glasgow, Galashiels, Abbotsford, Melrose, &c., but the weather continued to persecute me so obstinately, that I was compelled, with reluctance, to give up schemes so promising. This circumstance may account for the very slight notice contained in this journal of Sir Walter Scott; my purpose having been to speak of him more fully, when I came to Abbotsford. My disappointment, at first, was great; but I can now look back with equanimity to events, which have, perhaps, merely postponed my gratification; for having left so many points of interest unexplored, I shall hereafter have the larger excuse for revisiting Scotland.

As I crossed the Cheviot Hills in my retreat to

England, I gazed for the last time with unaffected regret on this land of mountains and of lakes. A country, in which I have met with so many natural scenes of grandeur or of beauty,-with localities so hallowed by history or song,-with oft recurring instances of kindness, and even of friendship, when I was but a stranger-must needs be long and gratefully remembered, and always with renewed sensations of delight. I had originally determined on passing the winter in Rome, but was dissuaded by various arguments from leaving my native kingdom. The harvest of entertainment, which I have reaped in the Highlands, joined to the course of events in the countries, through which I must have passed, has long made me cease to regret the substitution of Scottish for Italian scenes. And I can now unfeignedly sympathise in these patriotic thoughts of Fergusson, with which I close my Journal.

The Arno an' the Tiber lang

Hae run fell clear in Roman sang;
But save the reverence o' schools!
They're baith but lifeless dowie pools.
Dought they compare wi' bonny Tweed,
As clear as ony laumer-bead?

Or are their shores more sweet an' gay
Than Fortha's haughs or banks o' Tay?

Though there the herds can jink the showers
'Mang thriving vines an' myrtle bowers,
An' blaw the reed to kittle strains
While echo's tongue commends their pains;
Like ours they canna warm the heart
Wi' simple, saft, bewitching art.

On Leader haughs, an' Yarrow braes,
Arcadian herds wou'd tyne their lays,
To hear the mair melodious sounds

That live on our poetic grounds.

JOURNAL

OF 1836.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands, a chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of valour, the country of worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,

The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.