On the eighteenth of August we left Edinburgh, a city too well known to admit defcription, and directed our courfe northward, along the eastern coast of Scotland, accompanied the first day by another gentleman, who could stay with us only long enough to fhew us how much we loft at feparation.

As we croffed the Frith of Forth, our curiofity was attracted by Inch Keith, a small island, which neither of my companions had ever visited, though, lying within their view, it had all their lives folicited their notice. Here, by climbing with fome difficulty over fhattered crags, we made the first experiment of unfrequented coasts. Inch Keith is nothing more than a rock covered with a thin layer of earth, not wholly bare of grafs, and very fertile of thiftles. A fmall herd of cows grazes annually upon it in the fummer. It feems never to have afforded to man or beast a permanent habitation.

We found only the ruins of a fmall fort not fo injured by time but that it might be easily restored to its former ftate. It seems never to have been intended as a place of strength, nor was built to endure a siege, but merely to afford cover to a few foldiers, who perhaps had the charge of a battery, or were ftationed to g fignals of approaching

danger.

danger. There is therefore no provifion of water within the walls, though the fpring is fo near, that it might have been easily enclosed. One of the ftones had this infcription: "Maria Reg. વર્ડ 1564." It has probably been neglected from the time that the whole ifland had the fame king.

We left this little ifland with our thoughts employed awhile on the different appearance that it would have made, if it had been placed at the fame distance from London, with the fame facility of approach; with what emulation of price a few rocky acres would have been purchafed, and with what expensive industry they would have been cultivated and adorned.

When we landed, we found our chaise ready, and paffed through Kinghorn, Kirkaldy, and Cowpar, places not unlike the fmall or ftraggling market-towns in those parts of England where commerce and manufactures have not yet produced opulence.

Though we were yet in the most populous part of Scotland, and at fo fmall a distance from the capital, we met few passengers.

The roads are neither rough nor dirty; and it affords a fouthern ftranger a new kind of pleasure to travel so commodiously without the interruption of toll-gates. Where the bottom is rocky, as it seems commonly to be in Scotland, a smooth way is made indeed with great labour, but it never wants repairs; and in those parts where adventitious materials are neceffary, the ground once confolidated is rarely broken; for the inland commerce is not great, nor are heavy commodities often transported otherwife than by water. The carriages in common use are small carts, drawn each by one little horse; and a man seems to derive fome degree of dignity and importance from the reputation of possessing a two-horse cart.

ST. ANDREWS.

At an hour fomewhat late we came to St. Andrews, a city once archiepifcopal; where that univerfity ftill fubfifts in which philosophy was formerly taught by Buchanan, whofe name has as fair a claim to immortality as can be conferred by modern latinity, and perhaps a fairer than the instability of vernacular languages admits.

We found, that by the interpofition of fome invisible friend, lodgings had been provided for us at the house of one of the professors, whose

eafy

1.

eafy civility quickly made us forget that we were ftrangers; and in the whole time of our kay we were gratified by every mode of kindness, and entertained with all the elegance of lettered hofpitality.

In the morning we rofe to perambulate a city, which only history fhews to have once flourished, and furveyed the ruins of ancient magnificence, of which even the ruins cannot long be visible, unless fome care be taken to preserve them; and where is the pleasure of preserving fuch mournful memorials? They have been till very lately fo much neglected, that every man carried away the stones who fancied that he wanted them.

The cathedral, of which the foundations may be still traced, and a small part of the wall is standing, appears to have been a spacious and majestic building, not unsuitable to the primacy of the kingdom. Of the architecture, the poor remains can hardly exhibit, even to an artist, a fufficient fpecimen. It was demolished, as is well known, in the tumult and violence of Knox's reformation.

Not far from the cathedral, on the margin of the water, stands a fragment of the castle, in which the archbishop anciently refided. It was never very large, and was built with more attention to fecurity than pleasure. Cardinal Beatoun

is faid to have had workmen employed in improving its fortifications at the time when he was murdered by the ruffians of reformation, in the manner of which Knox has given what he himself calls a merry narrative.

The change of religion in Scotland, eager and vehement as it was, raised an epidemical enthufiasm, compounded of fullen fcrupulousness and warlike ferocity, which, in a people whom idlenefs refigned to their own thoughts, and who, converfing only with each other, fuffered no dilution of their zeal from the gradual influx of new opinions, was long tranfmitted in its full ftrength from the old to the young, but by trade and intercourfe with England, is now visibly abating, and giving way too fast to their laxity of practice and indifference of opinion, in which men, not sufficiently inftructed to find the middle point, too easily shelter themselves from rigour and constraint.

The city of St. Andrews, when it had loft its archiepifcopal pre-eminence, gradually decayed: One of its streets is now loft; and in those that remain, there is the filence and folitude of inactive indigence and gloomy depopulation.

The university, within a few years, confifted of three colleges, but is now reduced to two; the college