“There is a stern old tower of other days, Firm as a fortress with its fence of stone; Such as an army’s baffled strength delays, Standing with half its battlements alone.” One of these tombs is the nucleus of the castle of St Angelo, others were incrusted into the fortified mansions of the quarrelsome Colonna—so like were they, though built as the quiet mansions of the dead, to the towers of feudal fortresses. Shall we venture a theory about these Highland round towers? We have not yet found one to our own satisfaction; but the reader, if he likes, may take the following, which we guarantee to be of the average quality of such theories. It is well known that, when the Scots under Kenneth M‘Alpine conquered the Picts, they saved from death just two inhabitants of that devoted race, a father and son; their disinterested object in this clemency was, to find out how the Picts got their beer. It seems that they possessed a precious and much-coveted secret, in the means of brewing heather-ale. The Scots offered to spare the lives of the captives, if they would reveal the secret. The father promised to do so if they would, in the first place, comply with his request,—a very odd one for a father to make in such circumstances—to put to death his son. They did so; and then the father uttered a loud yell of triumph—the secret of the beer would be for ever hidden in his bloody grave. He could not trust to the firmness of his son; he could entirely rely on his own, and he was ready to bear all tortures rather than make the revelation. Now, why not suppose that these mysterious buildings were just breweries of heather-ale, and that, in the various galleries, decreasing as they ascend until they become mere pigeon-holes, the brewsts of the different years were binned for the use of hospitable dinner-giving Picts? No one can disprove the theory, and this is more than can be said for many another.