I do not wonder that Providence caused great things to happen
on this plain; it was like choosing a good piece of canvas to paint a
great picture upon. The battle of Bannockburn (which we saw beneath us,
with the Gillie's Hill on the right) could not have been fought upon a
meaner plain, nor Wallace's victory gained; and if any other great
historic act still remains to be done in this country, I should imagine
the Carse of Stirling to be the future scene of it. Scott seems to me
hardly to have done justice--to this landscape, or to have bestowed pains
enough to put it in strong relief before the world; although it is from
the light shed on it, and so much other Scottish scenery, by his mind,
that we chiefly see it, and take an interest in it. . . . .
I do not remember seeing the hill of execution before,--a mound on the
same level as the castle's base, looking towards the Highlands. A
solitary cow was now feeding upon it. I should imagine that no person
could ever have been unjustly executed there; the spot is too much in the
sight of heaven and earth to countenance injustice.
Descending from the ramparts, we went into the Armory, which I did not
see on my former visit. The superintendent of this department is an old
soldier of very great intelligence and vast communicativeness, and quite
absorbed in thinking of and handling weapons; for he is a practical
armorer. He had few things to show us that were very interesting,--a
helmet or two, a bomb and grenade from the Crimea; also some muskets from
the same quarter, one of which, with a sword at the end, he spoke of
admiringly, as the best weapon in the collection, its only fault being
its extreme weight.
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