^T. 28.] JOURNAL. 95 



to the old year, I must also bid good-by to you for 

 tbe present, wishing you, not as the mere compliment 

 of the season, but with all my heart and soul, - — a 

 happy New Year. The last New Year I well remem- 

 ber ; several of its predecessors also I have had the 

 pleasure of spending with you. I pray God we may 

 be preserved and have a happy meeting before another 

 new year comes. 



JOUKNAIi. 

 Kinross, Wednesday Evening, January 2, 1839. 



I left Glasgow at seven o'clock a. m. on the morn- 

 ing of the 26th December, on the top of a stage-coach 

 bound for Stirling, so famous in song and story, — 

 distant about thirty miles from Glasgow. I arrived 

 about half past ten, in the midst of a heavy rain. 



On leaving Stirling for Perth, I took an inside 

 place, as the storm stiU continued, but it shortly 

 cleared up, and I rode on the outside nearly the whole 

 journey. The only place worth noticing, or rather 

 which I have time to notice, through which we passed 

 was Dumblane, which is just one of those dirty Scotch 

 villages which defy description. If " Jessie the flower 

 of Dumblane " lived in one of these comfortless and 

 wretched hovels I 'U warrant her charms are much 

 overpraised in the song. Here I saw for the first 

 time a genuine ruin ; that of the large and once im- 

 portant Cathedral, founded in 1142. During the 

 short-Hved establishment of Episcopacy in Scotland I 

 think that the good Leighton was for a time rector 

 of Dumblane. Just beyond Dumblane we passed the 

 field of Sheriff-muir, and beyond this, at the little 

 village of Ardoch, I passed, without being aware at 

 the time, the finest and most entire Koman camp m 



