Besides its burgh court, Stirling is the seat of a sheriff, a commissary, and a justice of peace court. The circuit court of justiciary meets in it twice a-year; and the jury court occasionally. It contains two churches of the establishment, one episcopalian chapel, and five other places of worship for different orders of Christians. Stirling is remarked by the inhabitants of neighbouring towns, to be a place of extraordinary sanctitude. The principal sect which has parted from the church of Scotland, since its establishment at the revolution, began here about eighty years ago, under the auspices of the Reverend Ebenezer Erskine, who was originally minister of what was called the third charge of the parish of Stirling. The place of worship occupied by this divine, after his secession from the church, continued in use till lately, when a new one was erected behind it. It is now proposed to erect a monument to Erskine on its site, exactly at the spot where he was buried. The parish of Stirling comprehends the burgh, properly so called, and all its extensive burgal domains, with the exception of Spittal and Causewayhead (4). STIRLING CASTLE. _PLATE II._ THE CASTLE, to which, as already mentioned, Stirling owed its first existence and its early prosperity, and which is still decidedly the most important feature of the town, naturally assumes the second place in this series of sketches. The view here presented is from the low ground by the south-west shoulder of the town, formerly the royal gardens; and it represents that part of the fortress, where the rock is most precipitous and picturesque, and the buildings most interesting. The history of this stronghold can be traced back to the early times when the Romans here surveyed, perhaps from the bare rock, the boundless forests which then stretched away to the north. We also find Stirling Castle to have been a frequent object of contention among the various minor nations which, under separate sovereignties, occupied the central part of the British Isle, during the first ages succeeding the retirement of the Romans from Britain. It is unnecessary, however, to present a detail of transactions which are at once obscure and not generally interesting. The only circumstance which seems worthy of notice in regard to this part of the history of Stirling Castle, is, that it seems to have then been a mere tower, like an ordinary baronial fortalice, such being the appearance it bears on the more ancient seal of the burgh. [Illustration: _PLATE. II._ A. S. Masson del^t. J. Gellatly Sculp^t. STIRLING CASTLE. FROM THE KINGS PARK.]