Note 354 — THURSDAY, AUGUST 26.

I am not sure whether the Duke was at home. But, not having the honour of being much known to his grace, I could not have presumed to enter his castle, though to introduce even so celebrated a stranger. We were at any rate in a hurry to get forward to the wildness which we came to see. Perhaps, if this noble family had still preserved that sequestered magnificence which they maintained when catholicks, corresponding with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, we might have been induced to have procured proper letters of introduction, and devoted some time to the contemplation of venerable superstitious state. BOSWELL. Burnet (History of his own Times, ii. 443, and iii. 23) mentions the Duke of Gordon, a papist, as holding Edinburgh Castle for James II. in 1689.