GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. — STIRLING. 149 



by Ninian Winzet, the polemical antagonist of John Knox ; and at the Revo- 

 lution by James Kirkwood, under whose care John, earl of Stair, received 

 the early part of a classical education. Kirkwood, it will be remembered, 

 was the author of a keen satire, entitled " The twenty-seven Gods of Linlith- 

 gow" — a " History" which provoked the town council, and led to the author's 

 expulsion. 



STIRLINGSHIRE AND THE WEST HIGHLANDS. 



" Regia sublimis celsa despectat ab arce 

 Pendula sub biferis iriEenia structa jugis. 

 Regum angusta parens, regum nutricula natis 

 Hinc sibi regifero nomine tola placet. 



.... Discordia tristis, 

 Heu quoties proceruni sanguine tinxit huraum. 

 Hoc uno infelix, at felix csetera, nunquam 

 Laetior aut cceli frons, geniusve soli." 



The shire of Stirling has been the theatre of several of the most important 

 events recorded in the annals of Scotland. Every field, and town, and hamlet, 

 and fastness, is rich in the traditions of those remote struggles from which it 

 derives its name, and in which patriotism has withstood oppression, and waved 

 the standard of independence over the scene of her achievements. As we 

 pause on the history, how many pitched battles, sudden skirmishes, bloody com- 

 bats, and midnight raids, pass in review before us ! How many successive armies, 

 mustered on its fields of strife, proclaim by their varying ensigns the power and 

 ambition of those who at different epochs have laboured for its subjugation. 

 From the Roman legions, who compensated for the humiliation of conquest 

 by introducing among the conquered the arts and habits of refined life, down 

 to the hostile movements which terminated with the last field of Falkirk, freedom 

 has acquired fresh life from the blood of her sons. How different, too, the 

 character of those conflicting armies, and the means and method of warfare ! — 

 some with bow and battle-axe, and spear and javelin ; others with the destructive 

 engines of modern invention ; all have successively met in the same field — as if 

 only to leave fresh memorials of the woes that spring from the ambition of princes 

 or the turbulence of faction. To the contemplative mind, almost every scene 



Q Q 



