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Cruxtoun Castle.
The reader will find a brief, but instructive, account of this relic of Baronial times—which, at different periods, has been written Cruxtoun, Croestoun, and Crookston—in a work entitled 'Views in Renfrewshire,' by Philip A. Ramsay, one of the Poet's earliest and truest friends. Of the objects of antiquity remaining in Renfrewshire, Cruxtoun Castle, according to Mr Ramsay, is, in point of interest, second only to the Abbey of Paisley. 'The ruins of this castle,' he observes, 'occupy the summit of a wooded slope, overhanging the south bank of the White Cart, about three miles south-east from Paisley, and close to the spot where that river receives the waters of a stream called the Levern. The scenery in this neighbourhood is rich and varied, and although the eminence on which the Castle stands is but gentle, it is so commanding that our great Novelist has made Queen Mary remark, that "from thence you may see a prospect wide as from the peaks of Schehallion." To Cruxtoun Castle, then the property of Darnley, Mary's husband, tradition tells us, the royal bride was conducted, soon after the celebration of their nuptials at Edinburgh.'
Thou grey and antique tower,
Receive a wanderer of the lonely night,
Whose moodful sprite
Rejoices at this witching time to brood
Amid thy shattered strength's dim solitude!
It is a fear-fraught hour—
A death-like stillness reigns around,
