they threw over me their fascinating spell under the virgin impulses of pristine youth. As we leisurely pursue our way down the winding road to Forfar, let us pause for a moment opposite the prettily situated farm of Redford, on our left. Another near relative was tenant of that farm in my boyhood. Though duty and inclination led me to devote the greater part of my holidays to Glamis, I never failed to set aside a few days to spend with my aunt the "Flower of Brigton "-at Redford; and these I divided, as best I could, with my old maternal grandfather at Denmill. The farm-house and steading remain the same, but what was the sweetest and most interesting feature in the landscape, has disappeared. You see that triangular field immediately to the left of the bye-road leading up to the farm, now waving in all the golden luxuriance of autumnal beauty? It was not always so. In my boyhood, that now rustling field of corn fast ripening for the scythe of the reaper, was covered with a beautiful plantation of silver fir, whose fair spreading branches were vocal in spring with the melody of birds, and whose winding walks were redolent in summer with the balmy perfume of a thousand flowers. Many a bright summer day have I wandered alone in that sylvan wood, now penetrating into its inmost recesses, anon reclining on some mossy bank, the sweet choristers of Nature attuning the tender heart-strings of my virgin harp to the minstrelsy of the sky! How sweet on the calm Sabbath morning to walk from the smiling farmstead through this fir-scented planting to the distant church, surrounded with an atmosphere of love, and purity and holy joy! How refreshing its pleasant shade, when, after leaving the white and dusty road, we again, after sermon by the good Dr. Easton, entered its green o'ershadowed pathway welcomed back by the bursting melody of the happy birds, whose gushing strains seemed the more ravishingly joyous because of our return! And now-all is gone! If I can never forget the spring flush of happiness ministered to my ripening heart by that solitary wood of silver-fir, so, also, can I never forget those feelings of sadness and of pain, when, after an absence of many long years, I sought in vain for my favourite haunts in one of the most dearly cherished scenes of my early youth. Some time or other, dear reader-it may be soon-weeping eyes will look in vain for the landmarks of our existence; and loving hearts will mourn our exit hence, the more deeply and the more sadly, insomuch as we have imperceptibly evaporated like a gossamer dissolving view, leaving not a memory behind. Be it ours then to fulfil our proper destiny, by striving to develop to full fruition, those precious gifts with which a gracious God may have endowed us, and husbanding those blessed opportunities for doing good, which a kind Providence may have combined with our social positions in life. True, we cannot all aspire to be statesmen, philosophers, or poets, but each can do something, however infinitessimally small, to promote the general weal of the Commonwealth, and thereby accelerate the advent of that happy era in the world's history, when moral and Christian enlightenment shall flow down our streets like a stream, and righteousness as a mighty river. CHAPTER XLIV. THE CASTLE OF FORFAR. "The castell of Forfar was then, Barbour. THE old castle of Forfar was of great but uncertain antiquity All vestiges of the original building have long since disap peared, and with them all record of the date of its erection, or the particular form of the structure itself. Boyce says that Forfar had a castle at the time of the Roman invasion unde: Agricola, which is considered to be altogether apocryphal The castle, however, is recorded to have been the scene of the parliament which was held in the year 1057, by Malcolm Canmore after the recovery of his kingdom from the usurpa tion of Macbeth, and in which surnames and titles were first conferred on the Scottish nobility. It is quite certain that within one hundred and fifty years after the death of that King, Robert de Quincy made over to Roger de Argenten what he designates, "my place of the old castle of Forfar, which our Lord King William gave to me in lieu of a toft, to be held of me and my heirs by him and his heirs, well and peacefully, freely and quietly." (Reg. Prioratus S. Andrae). It is evident from this charter, that there must then have been more than one castle at Forfar; and this view is confirmed by Boyce (Hollinshed's Chron.) who says, that Forfar was "strengthened with two roiall castles as, (he continues) the ruins doo yet declare." It is supposed that the old castle given over by De Quincy was that of King Malcolm, which tradition states to have stood upon an island on the north side of the loch, called Queen Margaret's Inch, and that it was there King Malcolm held his first parliament, as already noted. The more recent castle would, on this hypothesis, have been the one that stood on the rising ground to the north of the town, called the Castlehill, some traces of which existed down to the end of the last century. William the Lion held a court at this castle between 1202-7; and Alexander I. held a parliament there in person, in 1225, and another in 1227, but from which the king was absent. King Edward and his retinue entered Forfar on Tuesday the 3d of July 1296, and resided in the castle until Friday the 6th. It would appear, however, that during the English monarch's stay at Forfar, only two churchmen and four barons from various parts of the kingdom went there and owned his superiority over Scotland. After Edward's departure, it was held by Brian Fitzadam, one of his retainers, from whom it was captured by Sir William Wallace. It soon fell again into the hands of the English, who kept possession of the fort until its re-capture by Robert the Bruce. Barbour assigns the merit of this capture to Philip, the forester of Platane, near Finhaven :— "The castell of Forfar was then But Philip the forestar of Platane And saget has the castell tain The castle, thus so completely demolished, was never rebuilt, and the court afterwards resided, on its occasional visits to the neighbourhood, either at the Castle of Glamis, or at the Priory of Rostinoth. As not a vestige now remains of this fort on the Castlehill, no conception can be formed of its elevation or extent. The only representations of one or other of these ancient castles which now exist are the figure cut upon the top of the old market cross, and the device which forms the common seal of the burgh. These devices, however, apparently only give a representation of a very inconsiderable portion of what originally must have been a very palatial and extensive stronghold. Like the burghers of Coupar, the "sutors" of Forfar seem to have turned the ruins of the ancient edifice into a quarry, for it furnished them with the materials, it is affirmed, for the building of the old steeple, the west entry to the old church, and a large portion of the houses which formed the streets of the old county town! Not a legend or tradition have I been able to trace in connection either with the castle on St Margaret's Inch, or the more kingly residence and stronghold on the castle hill. This is the more remarkable as interesting memorials of royal residences poetically survive in the names of some localities, such as, the King's muir, the Queen's well, the Queen's manor, the Palace dykes, and the Court road; and in the vicinity, the King's burn, the King's seat, and the Wolf law where the nobles were wont to meet for hunting the wolf. Some bronze celts and cabinet ornaments, preserved in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; and a few warlike swords and battle axes, in Glamis Castle, are all that remain to posterity of the royal palaces and castles of Forfar. Even the traditionary story of the armour found in the loch as being that of the murderers of Malcolm II., is rudely falsified by the more prosaic probability, that the swords and battle-axes had rather belonged to the soldiers who fell at the capture of the Castle of Forfar in 1308. Disappointed by the paucity of legendary lore, we must be content to note the more prosaic yet not less interesting |