a portal, but this is now demolished.  You land under the castle, and walking round find yourself in front of it.  This was originally inaccessible, for a brook coming down on the one side, a chasm of the rocks on the other, and a ditch in front, made it impervious.  But the late Macleod built a bridge over the stream, and the present laird is executing an entrance suitable to the character of this remarkable fortalice, by making a portal between two advanced towers, and an outer court, from which he proposes to throw a draw-bridge over to the high rock in front of the castle.’  Lockhart’s Scott, ed. 1839, iv. 303.

[641]

     ’Bella gerant alii; tu, felix Austria, nube;
      Quae dat Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus.’

[642] Johnson says of this castle:—­’It is so nearly entire, that it might have easily been made habitable, were there not an ominous tradition in the family, that the owner shall not long outlive the reparation.  The grandfather of the present laird, in defiance of prediction, began the work, but desisted in a little time, and applied his money to worse uses.’ Works, ix. 64.

[643] Macaulay (Essays, ed. 1843, i. 365) ends a lively piece of criticism on Mr. Croker by saying:—­’It requires no Bentley or Casaubon to perceive that Philarchus is merely a false spelling for Phylarchus, the chief of a tribe.’

[644] See ante, i. 180.

[645] Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1814:—­’The monument is now nearly ruinous, and the inscription has fallen down.’  Lockhart’s Scott, iv. 308.

[646] ’Wheel carriages they have none, but make a frame of timber, which is drawn by one horse, with the two points behind pressing on the ground.  On this they sometimes drag home their sheaves, but often convey them home in a kind of open pannier, or frame of sticks, upon the horse’s back.’  Johnson’s Works, ix. 76.  ’The young Laird of Col has attempted what no islander perhaps ever thought on.  He has begun a road capable of a wheel-carriage.  He has carried it about a mile.’ Ib. p. 128.

[647] Captain Phipps had sailed in May of this year, and in the neighbourhood of Spitzbergen had reached the latitude of more than 80 deg..  He returned to England in the end of September. Gent.  Mag. 1774, p. 420.

[648] Aeneid, vi.  II.

[649] ’In the afternoon, an interval of calm sunshine courted us out to see a cave on the shore, famous for its echo.  When we went into the boat, one of our companions was asked in Erse by the boatmen, who they were that came with him.  He gave us characters, I suppose to our advantage, and was asked, in the spirit of the Highlands, whether I could recite a long series of ancestors.  The boatmen said, as I perceived afterwards, that they heard the cry of an English ghost.  This, Boswell says, disturbed him....  There was no echo; such is the fidelity of report.’ Piozzi Letters, i. 156.