ABSTRACT
Chopin's impressions of the Scottish landscape, Scots, and the life in Scottish country seats show him to be a perceptive critic. Chopin remarks that he had known his 'kind Scots ladies' for a long time in Paris, and they 'take such care' of him. The houses Chopin visited were mostly connected with Jane Stirling's family, and located in the Scottish Lowlands between Calder to the east and Strachur to the west. Calder, since 1350 the seat of the Sandilands, was to be Chopin's principal residence among Scottish country seats. The grandest of the Scottish country seats visited by Chopin was Hamilton Palace, where, as at Strachur, he was independent of his 'good Scots ladies'. Chopin's host, Sir John Archibald Murray, was called to the Scottish bar in 1800, became a Member of Parliament in 1826, and in 1839 left Parliament for the Court of Session.
