In evidence of the actual operations of the fairy people even at this
time, little pieces of calcareous matter are found in the glen after a
flood, which either the labours of those tiny artists, or the eddies
of the brook among the stones, have formed into a fantastic
resemblance of cups, saucers, basins, and the like, in which children
who gather them pretend to discern fairy utensils.

Besides these circumstances of romantic locality, _mea paupera
regna_ (as Captain Dalgetty denominates his territory of
Drumthwacket) are bounded by a small but deep lake, from which eyes
that yet look on the light are said to have seen the waterbull ascend,
and shake the hills with his roar.

Indeed, the country around Melrose, if possessing less of romantic
beauty than some other scenes in Scotland, is connected with so many
associations of a fanciful nature, in which the imagination takes
delight, as might well induce one even less attached to the spot than
the author, to accommodate, after a general manner, the imaginary
scenes he was framing to the localities to which he was partial. But
it would be a misapprehension to suppose, that, because Melrose may in
general pass for Kennaquhair, or because it agrees with scenes of the
Monastery in the circumstances of the drawbridge, the milldam, and
other points of resemblance, that therefore an accurate or perfect
local similitude is to be found in all the particulars of the picture.
It was not the purpose of the author to present a landscape copied
from nature, but a piece of composition, in which a real scene, with
which he is familiar, had afforded him some leading outlines. Thus the
resemblance of the imaginary Glendearg with the real vale of the
Allen, is far from being minute, nor did the author aim at identifying
them. This must appear plain to all who know the actual character of