a parliament town of Scotland in the county of Murray, clashing with Inverness, Fortrose, and Nairn. It is a small well-built town, pleasantly situated on an eminence near the river Findhorn. The country about it has a cheerful appearance, having a few gentlemen's seats, with some plantations about them. On a hill west of the town are the remains of a castle; and a melancholy view of a number of sandhills, that now cover that tract of land which was formerly the estate of a Mr Cowben in the parish of Dyke. This inundation was occasioned by the influx of the sea and the violence of the wind. It had been the custom to pull up the bent, a long spiny grass near the shore, for litter for horses, by which means the land was looened, and gave way to the violence of the sea and wind, which carried it over several thousand acres of land. The people having been prevented from pulling up any more of the grass, the progress of the land is now nearly stopped, and the sea has retired; but the wind has blown some of the sand from the hills over Colonel Grant's land, and destroyed near 100 acres. A sand-bank, which is all dry at low-water, runs out from this place for several miles into the Murray-Firth. Some of the land, which has been long forsaken by the water, is now beginning to be useful again, and is turned into grazing land. At Forres, coarse linen and sewing thread are made. About a mile from the town, on the left-hand side of the road, is a remarkable obelisk, said to be the most flatly monument of the Gothic kind to be seen in Europe. It has been the subject of many able pens; but totally overlooked by Dr Johnson, who says, "At Forres we found good accommodation, but nothing worthy of particular remark."—It is thus described by Mr Cordiner, in a letter to Mr Pennant: "In the first division, underneath the Gothic ornaments at the top, are nine horses with their riders, marching forth in order; in the next is a line of warriors on foot, brandishing their weapons, and appear to be shouting for the battle. The import of the attitudes in the third division is very dubious, their expression indefinite. The figures which form a square in the middle of the column are pretty complex but distinct; four sergeants with their halberds guard a company, under which are placed several human heads, which have belonged to the dead bodies piled up at the left of the division; one appears in the character of executioner severing the head from another body; behind him are three trumpeters sounding their trumpets, and before him two pair of combatants fighting with sword and target. A troop of horse next appears, put to flight by infantry, whose first line have bows and arrows; the three following, swords and targets. In the lowermost division now visible, the horses seem to be seized by the victorious party, their riders beheaded, and the head of their chief hung in chains or placed in a frame; the others being thrown together beside the dead bodies under an arched cover. The greatest part of the other side of the obelisk, occupied by a sumptuous cross, is covered over with an uniform figure, elaborately raised, and interwoven with great mathematical exactness. Under the cross are two august personages, with some attendants, much obliterated, but evidently in an attitude of reconciliation; and if the monument was erected in memory of the peace concluded between Malcolm and Canute, upon the final retreat of the Danes, these large figures may represent the reconciled monarchs. On the edge below the fretwork are some rows of figures joined hand-in-hand, which may also imply the new degree of confidence and security which took place, after the feuds were composed, which are characterized on the front of the pillar. But to whatever particular transaction it may allude, it can hardly be imagined, that in so early an age of the arts in Scotland as it must have been raised, so elaborate a performance would have been undertaken but in consequence of an event