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Rosneath Past and Present
By William Charles Maughan (1893)


Mr. Maughan has here done a very serviceable piece of work. The peninsula or 'island' of Rosneath is only some seven miles long by about two broad, and has never been the scene of any great historical event. Yet few and comparatively unimportant as the incidents connected with it are, Mr. Maughan has managed to weave them together into a very readable story, and in fact to produce one of the best Scottish local histories we are acquainted with. The chief family on the peninsula is of course the Argyll. After them come the Colquhouns of Luss, who claim an antiquity greater even than the Campbells. Of these families Mr. Maughan, as in duty bound, gives an informing, if brief, account, and does not neglect others of IHSS note. The fortunes of Rosneath Castle are narrated, and many incidents of interest are recorded. Wallace is not omitted from the atory, and Bruce is nearly brought within the bounds of the parish. But it is in the ecclesiastical traditions of the place that Mr. Maughan is strongest. The Storys, father and son, Dugald Stewart, and the founder of the Andersonian College in Glasgow, have given a sort of celebrity to the place. Of the elder Story, we hare a fairly detailed narrative, while Dr. John Campbell M'Leod of Row, Carlyle and Irving, and other names known to fame appear in the annals. Chapters are also devoted to the topography of the peninsula; some curious things are said about the remarkable boulders found in it, and there are many notes on its fauna and flora, amongst which last we have references to the famous silver firs. The Marquess of Lorne contributes some sonorous lines in which the history of the peninsula is succinctly told, and one or two notes. Mr. Maughan ia at great pains to show how rapidly the place has developed in recent years, and what immense changes have occurred. Perhaps nowhere so well as in Mr. Maughan's pages can one obtain so good or vivid an idea of the rapid strides the country has made during the last fifty years.

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