Tuesday, January 6th, left Keith-hall after an early dinner; arrived at Aberdeen at eight o'clock; and, had it not been that fate has ordered it otherwise, I should have had something to have said of the manner in which I passed the time between that hour and midnight. Suffice it to say, it was at the house of a worthy man who has since paid the debt we must all pay. Willing to see something more of the town, as well as unwilling to rise at five, the hour of the Defiance starting, I preferred the mail at three, which would land me at Ury by dinner time, according to an arrangement with "the Captain," as the celebrated Captain Barclay is called, who was to meet me at Stonehaven to conduct me thither. My fellow passenger was the Mr. Ramsay, then residing at Aberdeen, who sold the celebrated Tilbury horse, a few years back, to Lord Rodney for the previously unheard sum of seven hundred guineas! and our guard was Fairweather, who, I was told, scarcely ever puts on a great coat, let the weather be what it may. I can only vouch for his having had none on this day, which was intensely cold, with showers of snow and sleet.

'The sight of a cheerful friend, is like the sun breaking forth on a cloudy day; and the dulness of the inside of a coach, with persons whom we never saw before, and are never likely to see again, is gratefully exchanged for the welcome face of a being of the above description, whom we have known many years, and who holds a place in our esteem, My acquaintance with Captain Barclay is of more than thirty years standing, having commenced when he hunted in Oxfordshire; and the general celebrity of his character made me proud of the opportunity of renewing it. I was delighted then, when I saw him standing at the inn door to receive me, and we walked together to our dinner, at Ury, distant two miles.

The domain of Ury is by far the finest that I saw in Scotland. It consists of a thousand acres of excellent arable and old pasture land,-six hundred of the former, and four hundred of the latter-admirably laid out

NO. LXIX.-VOL. XII.

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for agricultural purposes; and from its being surrounded by a wild country", and containing enclosures of from forty to eighty acres each, in a high state of cultivation, it may, with a little stretch of the imagination, be compared to Northamptonshire, in miniature, transported into Scotland. The house is very unequal to the domain. It is of that peculiarly unclassical form so frequently seen in Scotland-namely a high white building, somewhat resembling a large dove-cot; nor is there more than one good room in it. It is, however, well situated for the picturesque, a wild and rapid river running in front of it, and a fine view of the domain is commanded from most of the windows.

A well built stone wall extends round a great portion of the domain, and as the Captain adds to it every year, the great undertaking of thus enclosing the whole, will no doubt be completed through time.

The Captain is considered one of the very best farmers and breeders of cattle in Scotland, and has merited the gratitude of his countrymen for his introduction of improved stock. When I was at Ury it consisted of one thousand two hundred sheep of the pure new Leicester breed, and one hundred head of equally pure short horned (Durham) cows, heifers, and bulls, besides a quantity of native stock bought in for feeding; and he works twenty horses on his farm, having imported a capital Suffolk Punch stallion for the improvement of the breed. At the meeting of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, of the year in which I was in the country, he was awarded several premiums for superiority of stock.

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The Captain is equally highly bred as are his cattle-in fact he claims ancestral relationship to epic times, being clearly descended from the noble race of Bruce, the hero of Scottish history. He is likewise lineally descended from the celebrated Robert Barclay, author of the Apology for the Quakers,"-he, the said Apologist, was the son of David Barclay of Ury, the son of David Barclay of Mathers, the representative of an old Scots family, of Norman origin, traceable, I believe, through fifteen generations, to Theobald De Berkeley, who settled in Scotland in the beginning of the twelfth century. The "Apology," an

*The country about Stonehaven is thus described in vol. 2 of the Picture of Scotland, p. 248: "There is not, perhaps, in all Scotland, a track more sterile, and at the same time so thickly inhabited, as that which the road passes over between Stonehaven and Aberdeen. This bleak region, celebrated by the author of Waverley under the name of Drumthwacket, presents only barren eminences, destitute even of heath, and cold swampy moorlands, which nature seems to have specially set aside for the snipe and lapwing. In proof, however, of the industry of the Scotch people, I may add the singular fact, of cottages, and small farm steadings, being thickly scattered over this, still melancholy, tract.