the moment when the valorous laird returns the compliment by discharging his pistol at the inhospitable rock.*

From the valley a pleasant pathway leads entirely round the castle. Part of it is called Edmonstone's Road, and a seat and inscription commemorate the services of the benefactor by whom it was commenced. From this seat it is interesting to look down and see still fresh and distinct the turf embankments of the King's Garden. In the centre of this horticultural relic is an octagonal mound called the King's Knot, where it is said the monarch and his courtiers engaged in the favourite amusement of the Round Table. Surrounding it is an octagonal bank, and making a still wider circle, an embanked parallelogram. Around the whole are the vestiges of a cutting said to have been a canal where the royal parties amused themselves in barges. Beyond this garden to the south, is the King's Park, or Royal Chase, where the Stirling

caused make ane pair of wings of feathers whilk being festinit upon him he flew off the castle wall of Stirling, but shortly he fell to the ground and broke his thigh bone. The wyte (blame) thereof he ascribed to there being some hen feathers in the wings, whilk yearmit and coveted the mydden (dunghill) and not the skies." This incident gave rise to Dunbar's clever satirical ballad, entitled, "Of the Feigned Friar of Tungland," in which the poet exposes, in the most sarcastic strain, the pretensions of the luckless adventurer, and relates with great humour the result of his attempt to soar into the skies, when he was dragged to the earth by the low-minded propensities of the "hen feathers," which he had inadvertently admitted into the construction of his wings.

* We ought not to leave Stirling Castle without a view of the geological character of the rock, which is very beautiful and interesting. It is chiefly a greenstone trap, and its conjunction with the sand-stone may be observed in several places producing the usual effect of quartzose, hardening of the latter. In some cuttings on the north side of the rock, Dr. M'Culloch found a phenomenon, of which he gave an account in the first volume of the Transactions of the Geological Society. It shews the trap catching up and bending in folds through its own mass the sandstone strata; and affording a means of opening up discussion on the connection of neptunion and plutonic action, which we would not venture to anticipate. The Castle Rock, Craigforth, and the Abbey Craig, are all of the same formation-masses of greenstone trap, protruded by some internal combustion through the flat sandstone rocks of the coal-field around. When the flat river haugh all around was a higher reach of the estuary of the Forth, these must have been rocks projecting out of the water, against which ships may have been wrecked. They have a tendency to be columnar and basaltic, which at a distance gives them, especially when the sun shines on them, a very beautiful and airy appearance, heightened by a kind of metallic lustre.

races are now run. It was of this deserted spot that we read in the Lady of the Lake

Now, in the Castle-park, drew out
Their chequer'd bands the joyous rout.
There morricers, with bell at heel,
And blade in hand, their mazes wheel;
But chief, beside the butts, there stand
Bold Robin Hood and all his band,-

Friar Tuck with quarterstaff and cowl,
Old Scathelocke with his surly scowl,
Maid Marion, fair as ivory bone,
Scarlett, and Mutch, and Little John;
Their bugles challenge all that will,
In archery to prove their skill.

COWAN'S HOSPITAL is approached by a narrow entrance to the left of Edmonstone's path, and is connected with a quaint building surmounted by a turret steeple. The statue of its worshipful founder, cap in hand, looks down from his elevation with a courtly and majestic dignity. The hospital was founded in 1639 by John Cowan, for decayed Guild brethren, or privileged city tradesmen. It possesses a very curious Dutch garden, still trimmed in the old style, with its multiform clipped yew trees and stone terrace, and has lately received an accession in finely stained window.

It

The GREYFRIARS' or FRANCISCAN CHURCH stands on the declivity of the castle rock. It was erected in 1494 by James IV.; and some additions were made to the eastern portion of it by Archbishop James Beaton, uncle of the Cardinal. will be found on examination to be a fine specimen of the later pointed Gothic, and to the English ecclesiologist it will be curious, as a type of architecture peculiar to Scotland. Though dating from about the beginning of the sixteenth century, and thus contemporary with the depressed or perpendicular style of architecture in England, to the English antiquary it might thus appear a century older than it is. He will find the style of the structure a peculiarity often met with in Scotland, where the later forms of English Gothic architecture never were adopted. The Scots, in fact, preferred the taste of their friends in France to that of their enemies in England. In this church the Earl of Arran, regent of the kingdom, abjured Romanism in 1543, and the coronation of the youthful James VI. took place in the choir on the 29th of July 1567, on which occasion John Knox preached the coronation sermon. The massive Gothic columns of the interior remain intact, and the external walls are likewise in good preservation, with the exception of the transept. A

design for the restoration of the latter has been procured from Mr. J. T. Rochead, architect, Glasgow. Since the Reformation it has been divided into two places of worship, called the East and West Churches, and in one of these the celebrated Ebenezer Erskine, founder of the Secession Church officiated. He was interred in the open space in front of the Secession Church in St. John Street, and the spot is marked by a fine mausoleum in the Grecian style, erected during the summer of 1859.*

Though Stirling boasts of a few suburban villas and neat rows of modern houses, it has not been so much enlarged or changed as materially to alter its character as an ancient town. On either side of the steep ascending Main Street, the fronts of ancient houses still shew the turrets, crow-stepped gables, or quaint inscriptions and decorations of the old street architecture of Scotland. It was the fashion of old for the neighbouring nobles and gentry to have their city mansions in such a town as Stirling, and such was the distinguished use of many of the buildings now devoted to humbler occupants.

ARGYLE'S LODGING (Broad Street), the most conspicuous of these mansions, stands on the east side of the Castle Wynd, and is now used as a military hospital in connection with the castle. With its pinnacled round towers and finely decorated windows, it is an excellent specimen of the French castellated architecture so much used in Scotland. It has had an interesting history. It belonged to the accomplished poet, Sir William Alexander, who, in the reign of Charles I., was made Earl of Stirling (1632), and who obtained a grant of the vast territory of Nova Scotia, to be partitioned off in baronies. It

* The CHURCHYARD, as lately extended and ornamented, is a singularly interesting spot, and from it a magnificent view is obtained. Due advantage has been taken of the naturally picturesque features of the ground, and nicely laid out walks and terraces, winding among clusters of natural rock which here and there present themselves, has scarcely a parallel in Scotland. It is chiefly owing to the liberality of Mr. Drummond of Stirling, that these improvements have been made; and also that the statues in freestone of the leading martyrs and promoters of the Reformation have been added, as well as the fine group in marble of "Margaret Wilson of Glenvernoch, the Virgin Martyr of the Ocean Wave, and her like-minded sister Agnes." These are mostly from the chisel of Handyside Ritchie of Edinburgh. In a niche of a rock on the N. W. side of the enclosure, there is a beautiful little fountain with marble front, and inscription in Hebrew.