INVERLOCHY CASTLE.

"I heard the thuds and saw the cluds,

O' clans frae woods, in tartan duds,

Wha glaumed at kingdoms three, man."

BURNS.

[Tales of My Landlord, 3d Series, (A Legend of Montrose,) Vol. III. p. 269.

"While Montrose executed the counter-march, Argyle had, at the head of his gallant army, advanced up the southern side of Loch Eil, and reached the river Lochy, which combines that lake with Loch Lochy. The ancient castle of Inverlochy, once, as it is said, a royal fortress, and still, although dismantled, a place of some strength and consideration, offered convenient head-quarters, and there was ample room for Argyle's army to encamp around him in the valley, where the Lochy joins Loch Eil. Several barges had attended, loaded with provisions, so that they were in every respect as well accommodated as such an army wished or expected to be. Argyle, in council with Auchenbreck and Ardenvohr, expressed his full confidence that Montrose was now on the brink of destruction; that his troops must gradually diminish as he moved eastward through such uncouth paths; that if he went westward, he must encounter Urrie and Baillie; if north ward, fall into the hands of Seaforth; or should he choose any halting place, he would expose himself to be attacked by three armies at once."

There is no fiction in the author's account of the gathering of the Campbells or the battle of Inverlochy, both have a real existence, and the only difference between the narrative of that event as found in a "A Legend of Montrose," and in more serious performances, is, that in the former there is more effect, greater enthusiasm given to facts and persons, higher interest attached by description to localities, and that Argyle is treated by the author of Waverley, as Æneas was by the Mantuan bard, much too leniently. Loch Lochy is situated at the south-western extremity of the great vale that traverses Inverness-shire like a cross-belt, and terminates the series of lakes converted, at the national expense, into a valuable line of inland navigation. Its solitude is striking, and probably made more remarkable by possessing but one object, the lonely little inn of Letter-Findlay, to break the stillness and desolation of the view. Near to the west end, but in a hollow retiring from the grand opening of the vale itself, Auchnacarrie house is seated, the residence of the gallant Lochiel before his ill-fated espousal of the exiled prince's cause