STIRLING. — VIEW FROM THE CASTLE-HILL. 169 



performed the ceremony of baptism, already mentioned. He was the zealous 

 partisan of Queen Mary, and secret abettor in the assassination of the Regent 

 Murray in the street of Linlithgow ; a crime to which he afterwards acknowledged 

 his privacy. 



The view from the Castle- hill is proverbial for its beauty and extent, and 

 the great number of historical scenes over which it ranges. Among the latter 

 twelve battle-fields are pointed out in the landscape ; and of the four great 

 actions for which it is more especially celebrated, three were fought in the 

 vicinity. The view towards the east, as seen in the engraving, extends over a 

 plam nearly eighty miles long and eighteen broad — 



" Commanding all the vale where Forth's pure waves 

 Sea-ward, in sinuous stripes of silver pass.** 



On the left are Alloa and Clackmannan; and in the centre, Falkirk, the 

 Carse, the Frith of Forth, and the rich and populous district of Lothian, with 

 the rock-built Castle of Edinburgh tracing its bold outline in the diminished 

 horizon. The Forth, as if unwilling to quit the deHcious fields and gardens by 

 which it is bordered, forms many a " lingering link" — curved and twisted into 

 numerous windings, like the " gUttering coils of a snake." Its meanders are so 

 numerous as to enclose in their graceful circles many beautiful peninsulas ; 

 on one of which, immediately under the eye, stands the tower of the 

 ancient Abbey of Cambuskenneth.* The Links of Forthf are of classic 

 celebrity, and often employed as a subject of poetry as well as painting. Some 

 idea may be formed of these fantastic windings by mentioning that the short 

 distance of six miles by land makes twenty by water. The river is navigable 

 up to Stirling for vessels of seventy or eighty tons burthen ; but it is the only 

 navigable river in Europe, perhaps, where the vessel, if depending on its sails 

 alone to reach its destination, would require, in the space of a few mDes, wind 

 from every point of the compass. The different features presented by these 



A wish which, it is said, was speedily accomplished by the death of the author and his son-in-law on 

 the same tree ; and is thus recorded : — 



" Crevit, ut optabas, ramis felicibus arbor, 

 Et fructum nobis te generumque tulit." 



• Founded by David I. and formerly one of the richest religious houses in Scotland. At an early 

 period of the Reformation a great portion of this venerable sanctuary was destroyed by popular fury, and 

 the ruins resorted to as a quarry for the use of the neighbourhood. 



t The Links of Forth ; or, a Parting Peep at the Carse of Stirling ; a poem, by Hector Macneill, in 

 which all the striking features of the landscape are embodied in rich Scottish verse. 



X X 



