This interesting monument of the taste of our national sovereigns is completely desolated, so far as shrubs and flowers are concerned. The utmost exertion of the memory of the present generation, can only recollect an old cherry-tree, which stood at the corner of one of the parterres, and which was burnt down by the wadding of a shot, which some thoughtless sportsman fired into its decayed trunk, as he happened to pass it on his way home from the fields (8). It is yet possible, however, to trace on this desolate spot, the peculiar form into which the ground had been thrown by its royal proprietors. In the centre, a series of concentric mounds, of a polygonal, but perfectly regular shape, and rising above one another towards the middle, is yet most distinctly visible. An octagonal mound in the centre, is called _the King’s Knote_, and is said, by tradition, to have been the scene of some forgotten play or recreation, which the King used to enjoy on that spot with his court. In an earlier age, this strange object seems to have been called ‘the Round Table;’ and, in all probability, it was the scene of the out-of-door’s game of that name, founded upon the history of King Arthur, and of which the courtly personages of former times are known to have been so fond. Barbour, in his heroic poem of ‘the Bruce,’ which he wrote at the conclusion of the fourteenth century, thus alludes to it: ‘And besouth the Castill went they thone, Rycht by the _Round Table_ away; And syne the Park enweround thai; And towart Lythkow held in by.’ Lyndsay, in his Complaynt of the Papingo, written in 1530, thus also alludes to it: ‘Adieu, fair Snawdoun, with thy towris hie, Thy Chapill-Royal, Park, and _Tabill Round_; May, June, and July, would I dwell in thee, Were I ane man, to hear the birdis sound, Whilk doth against thy royal rocke resound.’ To give further countenance to this supposition, we have the ascertained fact that James IV., with whom Stirling was a favourite and frequent residence, was excessively fond of the game of the Round Table, which probably appealed, in a peculiar manner, to his courtly and chivalric imagination. It is a circumstance not to be omitted, that a piece of ground to the west, not so distinctly marked as this, but within the limits of the gardens, is called the Queen’s Knote. It should also be observed, that ‘King Villyamis Note,’ is the name of a song or ballad, quoted in ‘The Complaynt of Scotland,’ as popular in 1549, and which was probably descriptive of some game played here. A canal is still visible at the east end of the gardens. It flowed on the north by the wall, marching with the ground now belonging to the Earl of Mar, and discharged itself into another canal or reservoir, which is still very perceptible at the west end, adjoining the King’s Park.