Scone, and many will think the modern mansion a sorry substitute for the venerable remains of the ancient palace, the residence of so many sovereigns, now almost demolished. In the ancient abbey at this place, founded by Alexander the First, in 1114, and dedicated to the Holy Trinity and St. Michael, the Scottish kings were usually crowned; and here rested the fatal stone on which the monarch sat at the time of the coronation. Whether this stone was first dignified, as some relate, by king Kenneth, who sat upon it after the fatigue of a bloody and successful battle with the Danes, and was there crowned with a garland of victory; or whether it was brought from Ireland to Iona, as others say, and from thence to Scone, the stone was certainly regarded with superstitious veneration, on account of a traditionary prediction connected with it.

Ni fallat fatum, Scoti, quocunque locatum
Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem.

This notion, that the Scots would always reign wherever the stone should be found, rendered it an object of some consequence in the estimation of Edward the First of England, who probably imagined that their faith in this predic

tion encouraged the people in their resistance to his authority, and gave confidence and energy to their exertions in maintaining the independence of their country. To break the spell he caused the stone to be removed to Westminster Abbey, where it still remains in the ancient timbers of the coronation chair. But who can resist fate? The Scottish line of kings succeeded to the throne of England, and this has been considered as a sufficient verification of the prophetic distich. The abbey and palace were plundered and burned by the mob at the time of the reformation, and the abbey lands were, in 1604, erected into a temporal lordship in favour of Sir David Murray, a cadet of the Tullibardine family, the first Viscount Stormont. The allurement of these expected gifts, no doubt, powerfully inflamed the piety of such of the nobility and higher gentry as favoured the progress of the reformation, and induced them to overlook or encourage the outrageous and indiscriminate zeal of the populace. According to a tradition in the parish, those who assisted at the coronation of the kings, brought each a parcel of earth from his own lands in his boots, by which ingenious device every man stood upon his own land while he saw the king crowned. The boots

were then emptied into one heap, which, by successive additions, became that hillock, near Scone, called the Boot-hill, or every man's land. But the name, Boot-hill, is perhaps a corruption of Moot-hill,-a conjecture which derives some countenance from the name given to the hill by the highlanders, who call it, Toma-mhoid (the hillock where justice is administered). On every Shrove Tuesday a match at ball formerly took place, between the married men and bachelors of the parish, to which every man was obliged to turn out or pay a fine. The custom is now abolished, probably owing to the serious affrays which it occasioned, nothing being reckoned unfair that contributed to win the game: but the proverb still remains-" All is fair at the ball of Scone."

From Scone the road passes through rich and well cultivated fields. Stobhall, an ancient seat of the family of Perth, now in ruins, is observed on the right; while, on the opposite side of the Tay, the plain of Perth Proper spreads in full view to the foot of the Grampian range on the west. Crossing the bridge of Isla, at the junction of that river with the Tay, some miles below its efflux from the Dunkeld

pass, the road enters the Stormont division, a

plain extending from that portion of the Gram

pians, included between the Dunkeld and Blairgowrie passes, to the middle of the Strathmore, and passing through a corner of that deep grove of forest timber which surrounds the ancient seat of the Mercers of Aldie, situate at the point of confluence of the rivers, it stretches through modern plantations of fir, in an oblique line across the Stormont part of the Strathmore to the north-east point of the division at the Blairgowrie pass, where the river Ericht, issuing from that opening in the hills, joins the Isla in the valley near Cupar of Angus, midway between the Sidla and Grampian ranges.

The Gowrie division of Perthshire stretches north-east from Perth on both sides of the Sidla range. On the north side, the road to Cupar of Angus passes, in a direction almost. due north, along the foot of the Sidla hills, skirting the base of Dunsinane-hill, to which the magic pen of Shakspeare has given more celebrity, than it could derive from the fabulous portion of Scottish history, with which it is particularly connected. Many travellers will prefer this approach to the north for the opportunity of visiting this classic mountain; the summit of which, 1070 feet above the level of the sea, is among the highest points, if not the highest

point, of the Sidla range. On the top are the vestiges of a vitrified fort which tradition ascribes to Macbeth, and an urn is said to have been lately found there, containing half calcined bones, which (for so it seems to have been decided) were the remains of some distinguished warrior who fell in the battle betwixt Macbeth and Siward, if not the bones of the tyrant himself or his wife. The principal seats on this road, which passes through rich cultivated fields and plantations of fir, are Murray's Hall, St. Martin's, and Dunsinane. Within two miles of Cupar Angus the road passes through the village of Burrel-town; which has, in four or five years, attained to a considerable size and extent, by the liberal encouragement of the proprietor Mr. Drummond Burrel, and the demand for the labour of tradesmen of various descriptions afforded by this fertile tract of country. This road is continued through the Strathmore, and about the north eastern extremity of the Sidla range joins the road from Perth to Aberdeen by the coast. This latter road passes on the south of the Sidla hills, along the banks of the Tay, through the Carse of Gowrie, celebrated for its fertility, plan of cultivation, and orchards. This carse extends about fifteen miles in length from Perth towards