taken by a person of lower life for a slight offence, and after a long interval of time, in the same town of Linlithgow.

It occurred in the beginning of the seventeenth century. One Crawford, while a boy at the school at Linlithgow, had been stripped of his coat, by a small proprietor, who found him trespassing on his grounds. Crawford went afterwards abroad, and rose to some rank in the army, but this unatoned event still rankled in his bosom; and returning to Linlithgow, after an absence of many years, he avenged the indignity by poniarding the person at whose hand he had sustained it, and that on the very spot. He was beheaded at the Cross, and his head was long seen on the south side of the Church.* When it is considered that vice is of an epidemic as well as contagious character that the commission of any act, of horrid notoriety often gives birth to similar conceptions in the minds of kindred spiritsthat deep calls to deep, and crime occasions crime-it is not altogether impossible that the murderer Crawford may have been hardened in his deadly purpose by his mind dwelling upon the stern vengeance of Bothwellhaugh.

James VI. loved the royal residence at Linlithgow, and completed the original plan of the palace, closing the great square by a stately range of apartments of great architectural beauty. He also made a magnificent fountain in the palace-yard, now ruinous, as are all the buildings around. Another grotesque Gothic fountain adorns the street of the town, which, with the number of fine springs, leads to the popular rhyme:

"Linlithgow for wells,
Stirling for bells."

The town in other respects is not very remarkable except for some antiquity of appearance which is gradually disappearing, as the citizens require better accommodations than were afforded by the oldfashioned lodgings, which, as in France and Flanders, presented not the front, but their gable ends to the street. It consists of one long street, varying in breadth, and, which is rather unusual, narrowest at the centre of the town.

Among the attendants of James the Sixth was a distinguished personage, of a class which may be found in most places of public resort. This was the celebrated Rob Gibb, the king's fool or jester. Fool as he was, Rob Gibb seems to have understood his own interest. Upon one occasion it pleased his sapient Majesty King Jamie to instal Rob in his own royal chair, the sport being to see how he would demean himself as sovereign. The courtiers entered into the king's humour, overwhelming Rob Gibb with petitions for places, pensions, and benefices, not sorry perhaps to have an opportunity of

* See Statistical Account of Linlithgow.

hinting, in the presence of the real sovereign, secret hopes and wishes, which they might have no other opportunity of expressing. But Rob Gibb sternly repelled the whole supplicants together, as a set of unmercifully greedy sycophants, who followed their worthy king only to see what they could make of him. "Get ye hence, ye covetous selfish loons," he exclaimed, "and bring to me my own dear and trusty servant, Rob Gibb, that I may honour the only one of my court who serves me for stark love and kindness." It would not have been unlike King Jamie to have answered, "that he was but a fool, and knew no better."

Rob's presence of mind probably did not go unrewarded; for either on this, or some future occasion, he was in such "good foolery" as to get a grant of a small estate in the vicinity of the burgh. "Rob Gibb's contract-stark love and kindness"-is still proverbial in Scotland to express a match for pure love. It was happily applied as a toast after a wedding, in which the bridegroom's name happened to be Stark, and that of the clergyman who performed the ceremony Robert Gibb.

When the sceptre passed from Scotland, Oblivion sat down in the halls of Linlithgow; but her absolute desolation was reserved for the memorable era of 1745-6. About the middle of January in that year, General Hawley marched at the head of a strong army to raise the siege of Stirling, then pressed by the Highland insurgents under the adventurous Charles Edward. The English general had expressed considerable contempt of his enemy, who, he affirmed, would not stand a charge of cavalry. On the night of the 17th he returned to Linlithgow, with all the marks of a defeat, having burned his tents, and left his artillery and baggage. His disordered troops were quartered in the Palace, and began to make such great fires on the hearths as to endanger the safety of the edifice. A lady of the Livingston family, who had apartments there, remonstrated with General Hawley, who treated her fears with contempt. "I can run away from fire as fast as you can, general," answered the highspirited dame, and with this sarcasm took horse for Edinburgh. Very soon after her departure her apprehensions were realized; the Palace of Linlithgow caught fire, and was burned to the ground. The ruins alone remain to show its former splendour.

The situation of Linlithgow Palace is eminently beautiful. It stands on a promontory of some elevation, which advances almost into the midst of the lake. The form is that of a square court, composed of buildings of four stories high, with towers at the angles. The fronts within the square, and the windows, are highly ornamented, and the size of the rooms, as well as the width and character of the staircases are upon a magnificent scale. One banquet-room is ninety-four feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty-three feet high,

with a gallery for music. The king's wardrobe, or dressing room, looking to the west, projects over the walls so as to have a delicious prospect on three sides, and is one of the most enviable boudoirs we have ever seen.

There were two main entrances to Linlithgow Palace. That from the south ascends rather steeply from the town, and passes through a striking Gothic archway, flanked by two round towers. The portal has been richly adorned by sculpture, in which can be traced the arms of Scotland, with the collars of the Thistle, the Garter and Saint Michael. This was the work of James V., and is in a most beautiful character.

The other grand entrance is from the eastward. The gateway is at some height from the foundation of the wall, and there are opposite to it the remains of a perron, or ramp of mason-work, which those who desired to enter must have ascended by steps. A drawbridge, which could be raised at pleasure, united, when it was lowered, the ramp with the threshold of the gateway, and when raised, left a gap between them, which answered the purpose of a moat. On the inside of the eastern gateway is a figure, much mutilated, said to have been that of Pope Julius II., the same Pontiff who sent to James IV. the beautiful sword which makes part of the regalia.

"To what base offices may we return!" In the course of last war, those beautiful remains, so full of ancient remembrances, very narrowly escaped being defaced and dishonoured, by an attempt to convert them into a barrack for French prisoners of war. The late President Blair, as, zealous a patriot as he was an excellent lawyer, had the merit of averting this insult upon one of the most striking objects of antiquity which Scotland yet affords. I am happy to add, that of late years the Court of Exchequer have, in this and similar cases, showed much zeal to preserve our national antiquities, and stop the dilapidations which were fast consuming them.

In coming to Linlithgow by the Edinburgh road, the first view of the town, with its beautiful steeple, surmounted with a royal crown, and the ruinous towers of the palace arising out of a canopy of trees, forms a most impressive object. All that is wanting is something of more elevated dignity to the margin of the lake. But it is not easy to satisfy the inconsistent wishes of amateurs.

We may, in taking leave of this subject, use once more the words of old Sir David of the Mount, in his complaint of the Papingo :

"Farewell, Lithgow, whose palace of pleasaunce
Might be a pattern in Portugal or France."

SETON CHAPEL.

The Setons, Earls of Winton, were one of the most distinguished families, whether in respect of wealth, antiquity of descent, or splendour of alliance. They took their original name from their habitation, Seaton, "the dwelling by the sea," in East Lothian, where, it is said, their founder, Secker, was settled by King David I. Others, less probably, suppose that Secker's name being De Say, was conferred on his new acquisition. Here the Setons continued to flourish, producing many characters distinguished in history, until the middle of the fourteenth century, when the estate descended to Margaret Seton, who married Alan de Wyntoun, a neighbouring baron. This match was so displeasing to her own relations, that it occasioned a deadly feud, in consequence of which, as we are assured by the Prior of Lochleven, in his Chronicle, one hundred ploughs in Lothian were laid aside from labour, a circumstance which Lord Hailes justly founds upon, as a proof of the advanced state of agriculture in that province at a period so early. A son of this disputed marriage continued the family of Seaton in his eldest son, Sir John; and his second son, Sir Alexander, who married the heiress of the house of Gordon, founded a line still more powerful than his own, who succeeded to the honours of the Huntly family, and founded other subordinate lines of the same genealogy, which is still termed that of the Seton-Gordons.

Passing over many a Miles acerrimus, Anglisque infestissimus, who fought and fell in their country's cause, we find, in Queen Mary's time, that George, Lord Seton, was one of her most determined and attached friends, although he seems to have had no marked concern with any of those intrigues which brought on her misfortunes. It was he who attended her with a chosen party of horse after her perilous escape from Lochleven; and after the battle of Langside, this faithful lord was reduced to such extremities during his exile abroad, that for two years he is said to have driven a waggon in Flanders to procure subsistence. His picture in this occupation, and the garb belonging to it, was painted at the lower end of the gallery in the ancient palace of Seton.

There is another picture of this nobleman well worthy of notice. It is a family-piece, comprehending the Lord Seton, his lady, and four children, painted in a hard but most characteristic style, by Sir Antonio More. The group slope from each other like the steps of a stair, and all, from the eldest son down to the urchin of ten years old, who is reading his lesson, have the same grave, haughty, and even grim cast of countenance, which distinguishes the high feudal baron, their father. This very curious portrait was published in Mr Pinkerton's Ichnographia, after the original, then in possession of the

late excellent Lord Somerville, and which is now the property of the present lord, whose ancestor was married to Lord Seton's sister. This picture (often under the eye of the present writer during moments of much social happiness) is one of the most celebrated monuments of art belonging to Scottish history, and cannot be looked on without awaking the most powerful recollection of those feudal times, when conscious power, and the dangers as well as privileges which attend upon it, impressed on the countenance of the possessor a character so different from that worn by his successor, whose voice is no longer law within his baronial domains.

After the time of the Reformation, which was obstinately opposed by George, Lord Seton, his successors, though several of them conformed to the Protestant faith, and though all were devoted royalists, did not much interfere with the management of public affairs. In James VIth's time, they attained the dignity of Earls of Winton, and continued to flourish until the time of George, the fifth and last who enjoyed that dignity, and the large and plentiful fortune which was annexed to it.

This unfortunate nobleman was the son of the fourth Lord Seton, and Christian, daughter of John Hepburne of Aderstone, that nobleman's second wife, whose marriage afterwards became the subject of a law-suit between the young earl and the Viscount Kingston, next heir of the family. The earl had early shown a caprice of temper, said by a contemporary to be a family attribute; * for, having quarrelled with his father, he resided abroad for two years, in the capacity of a journeyman blacksmith, and none of his friends knew where to find him when he succeeded to the earldom. In 1715 he entered into the rebellion, and joined the Viscount of Kenmore with a fine troop of horse. It seems to be intimated in the histories and memoirs of the period, that the higher command was assigned to Lord Kenmore, in consequence of the waywardness and uncertainty of the Earl of Winton's character.

Yet, if we allow for the rashness of entering into this adventure, Lord Winton's opinions, so far as we know them, seem to have been sound and well considered. When, at the instance of the Northumbrian insurgents, the march into England was resolved upon, the Earl of Winton opposed it strenuously, proposing, with great force of reasoning, that they should rather seize upon Glasgow, and then march towards the north-west to join General Gordon with the western clans, who were advancing from Inverary. Favoured by such a diversion, General Gordon would have had little difficulty in crossing at the Heads of Forth, since Mar being at Perth with a considerable army, the Duke of Argyle could have detached no great part

* See his character in Mackay's Memoirs.