422 NOTES ON A BOTANICAL TOUR 
the north side of the Forth, and the Fintry hills on the southern 
side: these hills do not form the basin of the Frith. The Ochils 
meet the Forth at or near Stirling, but are far distant from the 
river at its lower portion. The Fintry hills form a continuation 
of that great chain of hills of which Ben Lomond is the facile 
princeps, and which towers above them as the Lombardy Poplar 
springs up among, and far above, the humbler Birches and Alders. 
The windings of this river have ever been famed since Words- 
worth wrote and published that exquisite morsel of pretty poetry, 
‘To Yarrow Unvisited’ Who that has read this charming 
production does not long to feel somewhat of the poet’s raptures 
who sang so sweetly one of Scotland’s most renowned classic 
streams ? 
“From Stirling Castle we had seen 
The mazy Forth unravelled ; 
Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay, 
And down the Tweed had travelled.” 
The views from the ramparts of Stirling Castle are very exten- 
sive and imposing: to the east there is a remarkable crag, which 
looks for all the world as if it had been shorn through the centre, 
and one-half carried away no one knows whither: though 
“The words that cleft the Eildon hills in three, 
And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone,” 
could have had no more difficulty in carrying away the hills than 
they had in separating them. It is proposed to erect on the re- 
maining half of the abbey-crag a memorial to one of Scotland’s 
greatest patriots and the valiantest and stoutest of her sons. 
The blood flows rapidly in every true Scotsman’s veins whenever 
he hears the soul-stirrig and simple melody of “ Scots wha hae 
wi’ Wallace bled.” The nobility, gentry, and commons of Scot- 
land have erected several monuments to him who has as high a 
place among the poets as the subject of the song quoted above 
has among her warriors: both occupy the foremost places. 
The reproach of Scotland’s having no monument to commemo- 
rate her greatest warrior is now to be removed. Better late than 
never; but the warrior’s and patriot’s noblest monument is the 
memories and feelings, the minds and hearts, of his countrymen, 
wherein he is, and ever will be, enshrined. From the west-side 
ramparts of the castle there is a good prospect of Ben Lomond, 
