52 



SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



their centre, and estimating their extent, population, and fertility, form the most 

 important district in Scotland. • It is here that the pomp, and power, and 

 natural resources of the kingdom are especially concentrated; where science 

 and art, and agriculture and commerce, have reached the highest pitch of 

 cultivation ; and where historical and classical associations are brought more 

 immediately home to the spectator's eye, and to the mind and partiahties of 

 the reader. Here, at one sweep, the view takes in a bold and varied panorama 

 — embracing the finest points of coast and river scenery, pastoral hills, fertile 

 plains, cities, towns, and hamlets alternately crowning the steep, or scattered 

 along the riclily cultivated champaign. 



" Die, hospes, postquam externas lustraveris oras 

 Hsec cernens, oculis credas an ipse tuis ?" 



Haddingtonshire, more generally known by the local distinction of East 

 Lothian, from its forming the eastern frontier of the kingdom, is bounded by the 

 German Ocean on the east, the Frith of Forth on the north, on the south 

 by Berwickshire, and on the west by the county of Edinburgh— the central 

 division of the same great district of Laudonia. The north coast, from its 

 projecting into the Frith, assumes a peninsular shape, and along its curvilinear 

 shore presents numerous small bays, promontories, and indentations, which 

 give constant variety to the scenery, and exhibit the charms of sea and shore 

 iu beautiful alternation. Here, a dilapidated fortress frowns, m shrunk pro- 

 portions, from the steep ; and there, a richly cultivated farm stretches, in fertile 

 fields or verdant pastures, to the waters' edge. Thriving villages, linked together 

 by intermediate cottages, line the undulating margin of the sea, and give birth 

 and OQCupation to a race of men, who are second to none in the successful 

 application of industry to national improvement, and the hardier enterprises of a 

 seafaring life. Here, if we may so express it, the sail and the ploughshare come 

 into immediate contact, and present at one view the progress of agricultui-e, 

 and extent of commerce — the best symbols of national prosperity. Numerous 

 mansions of the nobility and opulent classes are thickly distributed over the county, 

 and are well calculated to interest the stranger. They form distinct features of 

 embelhshment in the landscape, and present, in their several combinations, the 

 splendid rehcs of baronial antiquity, contrasted with the peaceful structures of 

 modern times. Royal and monastic ruins stiU point out the favoured spot, 

 hallowed by the residence of sovereigns, or consecrated to the service of religion ; 

 and are still eloquently characteristic of that dynasty, and hierarchy, which 

 they have long survived, and over whose departed sway what was once a 

 triumphal arch crumbles at last like a sepulchre. 



