Leaving the rambling suburbs of Paisley, you pass into a rough and undulating country with masses of gray crag interspersed with whinny knolls, where, in the evenings, the linnet sings; with narrow sandy roads wandering through it hither and thither, passing now a clump of gloomy firs, now a house where some wealthy townsman resides, now a pleasant corn-field. A pretty bit of country enough, with larks singing above it from dawn to sunset, and where, in the gloaming, the wanderer not unfrequently can mark the limping hare. A little further on are the ruins of Stanley Castle. This castle, in the days of the poet, before the wildness of the country had been tamed by the plough, must have lent a singular charm to the landscape. It stands at the base of the hills which rise above it with belt of wood, rocky chasm, white streak of waterfall--higher up into heath and silence, silence deep as the heaven that overhangs it; where nothing moves save the vast cloud-shadows, where nothing is heard save the cry of the moorland bird. Tannahill was familiar with the castle in its every aspect--when sunset burned on the walls, when the moon steeped it in silver and silence, and when it rose up before him shadowy and vast through the marshy mists. He had his loom to attend during the day, and he knew the place best in its evening aspect. Twilight, with its quietude and stillness, seemed to have peculiar charms for his sensitive nature, and many of his happiest lines are descriptive of its phenomena. But the glory is in a great measure departed from Stanley Tower; the place has been turned into a reservoir by the Water Company, and the ruin is frequently surrounded by water. This intrusion of water has spoiled the scene. The tower is hoary and broken, the lake looks a thing of yesterday, and there are traces of quite recent masonry about. The lake's shallow extent, its glitter and brightness, are impertinences. Only during times of severe frost, when its surface is iced over, when the sun is sinking in the purple vapours like a globe of red-hot iron--when the skaters are skimming about like swallows, and the curlers are boisterous--for the game has been long and severe--and the decisive stone is roaring up the rink--only in such circumstances does the landscape regain some kind of keeping and homogeneousness. There is no season like winter for improving a country; he tones it down to one colour; he breathes over its waters, and in the course of a single night they become gleaming floors, on which youth may disport itself. He powders his black forest-boughs with the pearlin's of his frosts; and the fissures which spring tries in vain to hide with her flowers, and autumn with fallen leaves, he fills up at once with a snow-wreath. But we must be getting forward, up that winding road, progress marked by gray crag, tuft of heather, bunch of mountain violets, the country beneath stretching out farther and farther. Lo! a strip of emerald