AYRSHIRE, a maritime county in the west of Scotland, bounded on the south by Wigtonshive and the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, on the east by Dumfriesshire and Lanarkshire, on the north by Ren frewshire, and on the west by the Firth of Clyde, and the Irish sea. Its length along the coast is above 80 miles ; and its greatest breadth from west to east about 32 miles. It contains three districts, (former ly denominated the three. bailharies of Scotland,) Carrick, on the south of the river Doon,—Cunning ham, on the north of the Irvine,—and Kyle, or Coil, which occupies the intermediate space, and which is subdivided, by the river Ayr, into King's Kyle, and Kyle Stewart. It includes the rock of Ailsa, and the two islands called Cumbracs, or Cambrays. The num ber of parishes within the county is 4.7. It is. said to contain 1010 square miles, or 665,600 English acres. In 1801, the number of inhabitants was re ported to the House to be 81,306. In 1755, it had been stated at 59,268, and in 1790 1798, at 75,511. The valued rent is £149,595 Scots ; and in 1796, Sir John Sinclair estimated the real rent at £112,752 sterling. The following is an accurate statement of the real rental for ISOS : The general appearan& of the county, though not remarkably variegated, cannot easily be characterised in a few words. Carrick, we think, is the most in teresting, though not the most fertile district. Its coast, extending from the Doon to Loch Ryan, (which some maintain is the 'oaaoreiga, and others the )coA7roy of Ptolemy,) is occasionally bold and rocky ; and its southern limit is enclosed by a lofty ridge of hills, (the Uxellum Montes,) partly green, and partly clothed with heath. The interve ning space between' the shore and the mountains is, for the most part, a gradual, but not uniform, ascent. The surface is diversified by numerous acclivities, some of them gentle, others more abrupt, separated from each other by rivulets not " unknown in song," quietly stealing along verdant meadows, or pouring their foamy waters under the beetling foliage of se questered dells, which have been successively occupi ed as the lurking-places of freebooting desperadoes,. the retreats of unfortunate .heroes, and the favourite haunts of the loves and the muses. The chief of these streams, overhung with natural wood, are the Girvan and the Stinchar, or Ardstinchar, a sound not easily adapted to the melody of verse,•but still less uncouth: than the names of its tributary brooks, Muick, Feoch; Ashil, and Dusk. Indeed most of the rivers in Ayr
shire have names insufferably harsh and grating to the ear. With regard to Carrick, we shall only remark farther, that, though it contains many charms, many fairy landscapes, and many glens in comparably romantic, and though, from its vicinity to the ocean, it reveals some magnificent prospects, it does not possess within itself either the grandeur or the sweetness, either the richness or the gaiety, which enliven the Arcadian scenery on the Tay, the 'rWeed, and the 'Teviot.
Kyle, or Coil, having once been a forest, may have taken its name from that circumstance, (the Celtic Coil/ signifying wood;) but the natives, misled probably by the old chroniclers, derive it from Coi tus, a British king, who is reported to have fallen 4. in battle somewhere on the river Coil, and to have been buried either at Coylton, or at Coilsfield. If such a personage ever existed, this does not appear to have been the scene either of his actions or of his misfortunes. The hill country, towards the east, is bleak, marshy, uncultivated, and uninteresting ; and on that side, except at one or two places, the district was formerly impervious. In advancing from these heights to the sea, the symptoms of fertility and the beneficial effects of cultivation, rapidly multiply ; but there is no " sweet interchange of hill and valley," no sprightliness of transition, no bold and airy touches, either to surprise or delight. There is little variety, or even distinctness of outline, except where the ver miculations of the river, are marked by deep fringes of wood waving over the shelvy banks, or where the long and almost rectilineal summit of the brown Car rick terminates abruptly in a rugged foreland ; or where the multitudinous islands and hills beyond the sea exalt their colossal heads above the waves, and lend an exterior beauty to that'heavy continuity of flatness, which, from the higher grounds of Kyle, zip. pears to pervade nearly the whole of its surface. The slope, both here and in Cunningham, is pitted with.