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culiarly well qualified for her situation as matron of a large boarding-school.

In the neighbourhood of Lanark there are many handsome seats, among which, Carstairs, the seat of Mr Monteith, seems to be considered the most splendid. But the most distinguished objects of interest in the vicinity of Lanark are unquestionably the celebrated Falls of the Clyde. Of these two are above and one below the town. The uppermost is Bonniton Linn, a cascade of about thirty feet. The next below is Corra Linn, where the water takes three distinct leaps, each apparently as high as that of Bonniton. Upon a rock above the Fall, on the southern brink of the river, stands a ruined castle, behind which is a middle-aged mansion, and behind which again there is a still more modern and splendid house. All these are embowered in the trees and shrubbery which add such grace to the whole of this wild scene. A pavilion, erected above a century ago, stands on the opposite bank of the stream, as a sort of station for observing the fall.

Above this series of cataracts, the river, as had been already observed, moves very slowly, like a victim reluctantly approaching the place of its fate; and, indeed, a sentimental traveller, for the first time drawing near to the scene, when he heard the sound of the falls and observed the spray rising through the trees, might be excused, in the excitation of the moment, for fancying that he was about to witness the execution or torture of some noble being, condemned to undeserved and degrading punishment. Immediately below the first fall, the course of the water becomes prodigiously rapid, as if it were anxious to hurry through the scene and be put out of pain. At one point in this part of its course, it struggles through a chasm of not more than four feet -the narrowest part of the Clyde-and where it can easily be stepped over; though, of course, when the river is in flood, this cannot be observed, as other features of the scene are in the same manner materially altered. Below the last fall, the river glides dejectedly away, with numberless spots of foam upon its surface,

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like a spent steed whose dark sides exhibit marks of late exertion as unequivocal as slowness of pace and dimness of eye.

The third fall of the Clyde occurs at Stanebyres, about two miles below the town of Lanark, and four from Corra Linn. It is characterised by the same features with that cascade, consisting in three falls.

The great power of water and the rapid descent of the river have caused these beautiful natural scenes to be deformed in a remarkable degree by artificial erections the most foreign imaginable to their character. Little more than half a mile below Corra Linn stands what is called the Village of New Lanark-a series of huge square buildings, connected with one or two streets of inferior magnitude, and stretching along the north bank of the river, which here rises so abruptly and so near the stream as only to allow room for two lines of edifices. The large buildings are cotton-mills, and the inferior streets contain the residences of the persons employed in them, amounting it is said to about two thousand. This is rather a singular community. No person is admitted into it except as connected with the manufactory; the very tradesmen who provide the necessaries of life being incorporated in the system.

This manufactory was first established, about forty years ago, by Mr David Dale, a man whose character is said to have been marked by almost Quixotic benevolence. It is now in the possession of a company which owns for its head Mr Robert Owen, so remarkable for his fantastic projects in regard to the domestic polity of mankind. As an exception from the present and unchangeable system of life by nature established, it is as tolerable as any other monster; and all strangers who happen to approach this part of the country, accordingly pay it the visit of curiosity. Industry with her thousand hands is here the predominant divinity; and her works and ways of working are such as may at least amuse, though certainly not permanently gratify, every person who inspects them.

The inhabitants of New Lanark are a peculiar peo

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ple-speak with an accent of their own-and dress themselves better on Sunday than their neighbours of the same rank. They are said to live harmoniously, and even to exhibit a considerable degree of esprit-decorps. They are supplied with cloth and other necessaries by the proprietors of the works; who very properly devote the profits arising from this branch of business to the education of the children; none of whom are permitted to engage in labour till the age of

ten.

In the house of Bonniton, near the Fall of that name, the seat of Sir Charles Ross of Balnagowan, representative of the Baillies of Lamington, are preserved two relics of Sir William Wallace, the genuineness of which is perhaps rather to be hoped for than relied upon-a portrait of the hero, and a chair on which he is said to have sat. The last curiosity is at least an ancient heirloom of the family, having been brought hither from Lamington Tower. It resembles a rude garden-seat, or that piece of farmer's-ingle furniture called the settle, more than a chair of the modern construction, or even of that two-story-high description which prevailed in the days of stateliness, long waists, lappets, and frilled elbows. It is about three feet long and quite capable of containing the sitting part of even a stouter gentleman" than we conceive "Scotia's ill-requited chief" to have been. Four round stoops, slightly ornamented at top by the turning loom, and the two at front shorter than the two behind, form the frame-work of the chair, and the only original part of it, for the rest has been at some recent period renewed; the bottom is made of spokes; and the appearance of the whole is sufficiently plain to warrant its having been constructed in the thirteenth century.

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The Clyde, little more than a mile above Bonniton Linn, receives the tribute of the Douglas Water. The vale formed by this stream, called Douglas Dale, is extremely fertile and beautiful. It is crossed by the road from Glasgow to Carlisle (by Hamilton) at a point called Douglas Mill, two miles below the pleasant and old

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