EUROPEAN SCREECH-OWL. 477 



let it be, not a barn, nor a cathedral, but this huge mouldering 

 tower, once the seat of the powerful lords of iJorthwick. To 

 it I give the preference, because, as the minister of the parish 

 remarks, " It is pleasing to recollect, that it has not been 

 stained or rendered in any respect horrible to the imagination 

 by the perpetration of any of those darker and more atrocious 

 crimes which were so common in Scotland during the times 

 of the Jameses, and which still seem to adhere in gloomy co- 

 lours to the ruins that awaken our interest. But families," as 

 the reverend man observes (gentleman, I say not, for no bishop 

 of a christian church can be distinguished by any title that be- 

 longs merely to the world) " have their times of rise, of gran- 

 deur, and of ultimate decline. The immense possessions of 

 this once powerful and respectable family have long fallen to 

 other occupants, their race has become almost extinct, and the 

 scene of their greatness and splendour is an uninhabited and 

 fast crumbling ruin. It is solemn, amidst such thoughts, to 

 stand, while the shadows of evening are falling on the surround- 

 ing glen, beside the ever-murmuring brook that hastens down 

 the valley, and to permit the scene before us to make its na- 

 tural impression on our minds. A few scattered lights are 

 beaming from the humble windows of the lowly cottages that 

 lie under the shadow of the ruin ; the castle itself, in all its 

 gloomy and solitary grandeur, still lifts its imposing mass into 

 the dusky air ; and over all are the enduring lights of heaven, 

 which have witnessed, without change, so many revolutions 

 among the dwellings of men, and which are destined, through 

 the long coming years of the history of our race, to shine on so 

 many myriads who have as yet no intimation of the wonders 

 of that ever-varying scene into which they are eventually to be 

 ushered. The present, the past, and the future, are thus brought, 

 by the different features of the scene, at one moment before us ; 

 and each portion of the picture derives additional interest from 

 the others with which it is associated. The effect of the whole 

 is an impression that is at once solemn and imposing." 



If the belief of ghosts had not long ago been extinct among the 

 more enlightened at least, to which class I and my readers be- 

 long, I had taken that shriek for the cry of the beautiful, guilty, 



