Lossie, which runs past Elgin. It is here that we find the most extensive of all lord Fife's plantations. It covers five thousand acres, and is in a very thriv ing condition. The land on the west side of Elgin is excellent soil, and all the farms belonging to lord Fife in excellent order. There is an extensive natural oak wood here, which is an uncommon thing in this part of the country. Lord Fife's plantations are carried on for about four miles on the road to Forres. Rothiemay, situated on the Deveron, is a very good old house, and the natural scenery around it beautiful. There is here an extensive natural wood, and very large plantations. The farms, and country round, is under excellent cultivation. Marr Lodge is situated on the banks of the river Dee, about thirty miles from the sea, which it joins at Aberdeen. The river takes its rise from a spring about twenty miles above Marr Lodge. The house is placed on a beautiful plain, surrounded with large mountains, covered with wood. At some distance from the house, on a commanding situation, is a small tower; and at another place on the brow of the mountain behind, a gothic chapel; and at another, a fine obelisk; all built of stone. The small chapel is inhabited by the forester. The forest, in extent, is not less than twenty-five miles square. It is bounded by the counties of Bamff, Inverness, and Perth. It contains abundance of deer, and all kinds of game, as hares, badgers, &c. Foxes also are in great plenty, and in the winter season, when the snow is deep, very destructive to the roe-deer. The different waters that flow through the different woods, are as clear as chrystal. There are many beautiful cascades in this forest. Of a great variety of different kinds of trees there are some more than eighteen feet in circumference. The river abounds in fish of different kinds, salmon, trout, pike, &c. Of birds, Marr forest has all the species known to the most inland and elevated parts of Scotland: eagles, falcons, kites, ravens, ptarmigans, moor-fowl, or grous, the black cock, or cock of the wood, called by the natives coper calzie, &c. &c. The cagles inhabiting, and as it were reigning in the rocks, or the sides of the mountains, are exceedingly numerous, and very troublesome neighbours. When they are in want of food for their young, they not only destroy great quantities of grous, and wood-pigeons, and other gregarious or harmless birds, but will carry off to their nests, lambs, and young or little dogs. The rocks and mountains of this elevated region are uncommonly stupendous and grand. It is no wonder that the earl of Fife, possessing such various and vast tracts of land, should take delight in improving them, and promoting the general prosperity of Scotland-or that for its defence he should have raised and equipped two regiments. By the general and unremitted pursuits of such great landed proprietors, in Scotland and in Ireland, turbulence, idleness, and barbarism, would give way to order, industry, and civilization. Were gentlemen to live at home, and improve the country; were they to exempt their tenants from slavery, and other wise encourage them, the most barren land would soon satisfy every natural want; and become Terra suis contenta, nec indiga mercis. But luxury and vanity are boundless as the ocean. And many great men, being under the dominion of these, grind the faces of the poor, yet do not enrich themselves. They multiply exactions on the people, who dare not to complain, and exhaust their own fortunes, by imitating the manners and the luxury of their more wealthy neighbours. The earl of Fife is not accounted a disinterested and generous man; but equally shrewd, politic, and selfish though I never heard that he was disobedient to the calls of either justice or honour. But it is only by such steady exertions as those of lord Fife, springing from the motives of private interest or ambition, that the prosperity of a country, to any great or considerable extent, is to be promoted. Subscriptions to useful or humane projects, generally vanish into salaries and other advantages to those who set them on foot, and are entrusted with the management of them. It is only by individual interests, passions, and exertions, that a country is to be improved to the extent of its improvability, or indeed to any extent at all considerable. In the constitution of individuals again, social and benevolent sentiments are fortified by the best interests of self-love. It appears that lord Fife can wind the Baillies, of Bamff, about his finger, when he pleases: yet he does not hesitate to amuse himself at their expense, on |