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MEMORIALS OF RAY : 



a very good house, as houses go in Scotland. There is a 

 small lough or standing water on two sides of the house. 

 The lough formerly was never without swans ; but Mr. 

 Stuart, one of the bailiffs of the town, told us a strange 

 story of those swans, which left the lake when the house 

 was taken and garrisoned by the English ; and although 

 two were brought on purpose for trial, yet would they 

 not stay there ; but at the time of the king's coming to 

 London, two swans, nescio unde sponte et instinctu pro- 

 prio, came hither, and there still continue. This Stuart 

 hath nourished in his garden divers exotick plants, more 

 than one would hope to find in so northerly and cold a 

 country ; some such as we had not before seen, viz., 

 Arcltangelica [Angelica ArcJiangelica, Linn.,] Fimaria 

 siliquosa, [Fmnaria capnoides ? Linn.,] Carduus lacteus 

 peregrinus jlo. alho, Verhascmn 4 Matth. angusti folium, 

 Anclmsm species flo. parvo nigricante, Alcea surrecta Icevis 

 flo. amplo rubro et alho, as we then named them. 

 Sterling is an indifferent handsome town, hath a good 

 market-place, two palaces, one of the Earl of Marr, the 

 other of the Marquis of Argyle. But the castle is most 

 considerable, and hath been, and with little cost, may be 

 again made, a very magnificent house. It hath an hall 

 longer, if not broader, than Trinity College Hall in Cam- 

 bridge. The building, added by James V, contains many 

 very stately rooms both for lodging and entertainment, 

 in many of them very good carved wood-work on the 

 roofs. There is also a chapel built by James VI, at the 

 birth of his eldest son, in which we saw a model of 

 Edinburgh castle, and the ship in which they served up 

 the meat into the hall, when Prince Henry was baptized. 

 This castle stands on an high and steep rock ; under the 

 building are many vaults cut out of the rock, and one 

 under another. The castle, on our being there, w^as 

 garrisoned with 200 English. The commissary told us 

 that the greatest inconvenience of that castle, in case of 

 a siege, w^as that upon the discharging of the great guns, 

 the water in the wells would sink, and the wells become 



