the destruction of Cambuskenneth Abbey,and took its stones to build himself a palace in Stirling, which never advanced further than the façade, and which has always been called "Marr's Work."

The Earl of Mar, in 1715, raised the banner, in Scotland, of his sovereign, the Chevalier James Stuart, son of James the Second or Seventh; and was defeated at the bloody battle of Sherriff Muir. His title was forfeited, and his lands of Mar were confiscated, and sold by the government to the Earl of Fife,

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His grandson, and representative, John Francis, lived at Alloa Tower, which had been for some time the abode of James the Sixth, as an infant. This tower was burnt in 1801, by a candle being left near a bed by a careless servant. Erskine, afterwards Lady Frances, had passed this room to her own every night for twelve years, but that night, being ill, she had gone up by a private stair. Mrs. Erskine was burnt, and died; leaving, besides others, three children, who were born blind, and who all lived to old age. The family being thus driven away from Alloa Tower, it was left as a ruin, and used to be a show from the neighbouring gentlemen's houses.

In the beginning of this century, upon a general and violent alarm of the French invasion, all the cavalry of the district, and all the yeomanry, poured

into Alloa, a small poor town, in which they could not find accommodation. A troop accordingly took possession of the tower, and fifty horses were stabled for a week in its lordly hall. In, or about, 1810, a party of visitors found, to their astonishment, a weaver very composedly plying his loom in the grand old chamber of state.

He had been

there a fortnight, and the keeper of the tower professed to know nothing of it. He had been dislodged in Alloa for rent.

Between 1815 and 1820, the contributor of this article has often formed one of a party who have shaken the ash saplin in the topmost stone, and clasped it in the palm of their hands; wondering if it was really the twig of destiny, and if they should ever live to see the prophecy fulfilled.

In 1822, King George the Fourth came to Scotland, and searched out the families who had suffered by supporting the Princes of the Stuart line. Foremost of them all was Erskine of Mar, grandson of the Mar who had raised the Chevalier's standard, and to him, accordingly, he restored his earldom. John Francis, the present peer, and the grandson of the restored Earl, boasts the double earldoms of Mar and Kelly. His Countess was never presented at St. James's, but she accidentally met Queen Victoria in a small room in Stirling Castle, and the Queen immediately asked who she

was, detained her, and kissed her. The Earl and Countess are now living in affluence and peace at Alloa Park, and many, who knew the family in its days of deepest depression, have lived to see "the weird dreed out, and the doom of Mar ended."

"Alloa Tower-a woman's dower"-was the jointure-house of the Lady Frances Erskine, the mother of the restored Peer. The present Earl has no children, and his successor in the peerage, accordingly, will not be an Erskine but a Goodeve, the child of his eldest sister, the Lady Jemima; the old line being thus broken.

THE HEART OF MONTROSE.

FEW of our readers will require to be reminded that the great Montrose, having fallen into the hands of the covenanters, after all his victories, was condemned to die the death of a traitor. Neither is it our intention to dwell upon the bloody and painful details of the execution. It is enough for the purpose in hand to state that the Marquess having been put to death, his severed head " was fixed upon the Tolbooth, over against the Earl of Gowrie's, with an iron cross over it, lest by any of his friends it should have been taken down."

To fill up the measure of an ignominious revenge after death, his body was thrown into a hole at the public place of execution, called the Borough

muir, and answering to the London Tyburn. It would have been too mild, too much an act of grace, for the stern Calvinistic spirit to have allowed his remains to sleep in hallowed ground and in the gay garments of martyrdom prepared for him by his friends,-the costly pearling, the fine linen, the carnation stockings, and the delicate white gloves," all of which, at a later period, were found in the Napier charter-chest, all stained with the faded marks of blood, and accompanied with other reliques of a similar nature. These indignities offered to the remains of the great Marquess were felt by none more acutely than by Lady Napier, who had married his nephew, and who had been so especial a favourite with him, that in his prosperous days he had always promised to leave his heart to her when he died, in token of affection, It is likely enough that this promise was not without effect in stimulating her to the deed which she now meditated. She resolved to get possession of his heart, and succeeded in persuading a confidential friend to undertake the enterprise, and in Belfour's phrase 66 to extract sweetness from the maw of the devourer." It was a perilous attempt, most probably implying death to the bold adventurer, if he failed, for mercy was by no means the order of the day. The friend, however, had the good fortune, against all chances, to succeed in his