The view from Ben-Lomond commands a greater variety, though not a greater extent of scenery, than Cruachan, Lawers, or even BenNevis. A brisk gale blew from the westward-the sun shone bright— the white clouds sailed rapidly along, veiling and unveiling the summits of the mountains, and chequering with their shadows the valleys and the plains between.

"Shade follows shade, as laughing zephyrs drive,

And all the chequered landscape seems alive."

EASTWARD, the eye wanders over cultivated plains, and classic vales, castellated rocks, winding rivers, and wealthy towns, till it rests, at the utmost verge of the horizon, on the intellectual city-the Athens of the North.

WESTWARD, we behold a succession of lakes and woods, of mountains and valleys, of promontories and precipices, of harbours and ships, of islands and oceans.

SOUTHWARD, Glasgow and the Clyde darken the atmosphere with their thousand furnaces. We see the wreaths of smoke which they are constantly belching forth; and we almost hear the clanking of their engines, and the murmur of their machinery.

NORTHWARD, we behold a vast and tumultuous sea of mountains and mists, where the billows often appear towering above the clouds, and the clouds rolling down into the abysses of the waves. All is a moving chaos, conveying some idea of the primordial elements, when about to be separated into air, earth, and ocean *.

For an amplification, usque ad nauseam, of these brief characteristics, see the descriptions of sentimental and picturesque tourists, passim !

There is one comfort for travellers, that they may ride to very near the summit of Ben-Lomond, with more ease than to the summit of Skiddaw-though with less chance of clear weather, when they get there. But the journey is never without profit. The exercise, the mountain air, the exhilaration of spirits, and the acquisition of health, are ample equivalents for any disappointment as to prospect from the mountain's airy brow.

*It is curious that the ancient Greek navigator, Pytheas, when describing ULTIMA THULE, (now considered to be the Shetland isles,) asserts that "the climate of these northern regions is neither earth, air, nor sea, but a chaotic confusion of these three elements." From this passage, I infer that Pytheas had actually ascended Ben-Nevis or Ben-Lomond, in a Highland mist. Italian, French, and American tourists make nearly the same observation, without knowing that they were anticipated, by a Grecian tourist, two thousand years ago! There is nothing new under the sun!

GLASGOW.

I regret exceedingly that I am obliged to pass over this fine and flourishing city, with little more than the briefest notice, though it deserves half a volume! If I am asked, why? I really cannot tell. We are unable to explain why an ordinary or even an ugly countenance will sometimes attract our attention in the street, or in an assembly, while fifty beautiful faces are passed unnoticed. The narrow, steep, and somewhat malodorous wynds of AULD REEKIE, excited far more vivid trains of thought in my mind, than the spacious squares and magnificent streets of the New Town. I only state the fact-philosophers must explain the cause.

Glasgow appears to have been accidentally built over one of Pluto's most fashionable DIVANS-or of Vulcan's most extensive smitheries; for, at each second of time, we see towering columns, or wreathing volumes of the densest smoke, belched forth from a thousand infernal lungs, through pipes or tubes of most gigantic altitudes and dimensions. The only place which can rival-or perhaps excel-Glasgow, in this respect, is BILSTON, near Birmingham, where the inhabitants inhale more smoke and sulphur than if they lived in the crater of Vesuvius during a smart eruption. The atmosphere of Glasgow is certainly much less bright and exhilarating than that of Italy, or even of Edinburgh; and no wonder, when we have so many tall and fuming pyramids, each of them enceinte of a young volcano, threatening to illumine, but actually darkening, the gloom of even a Caledonian climate!

Although great part of the city of Glasgow is little inferior in architecture to the New Town of Edinburgh, while it is infinitely more lively and animated, yet there is something connected with the forges, the furnaces, the foundries, and the factories-the steamers and the steamengines the tar and the hemp-the cables and the anchors-the warehouses, casks, cotton bales, packing-cases, rum-puncheons, tobacco hogsheads, and all the proteian forms and denominations which manufactures and merchandise assume-that damped or annihilated my romantic and picturesque ideas, and almost induced me to put a quill behind my ear, and look as thoughtful as the crowds whom I met in the streets*.

"Bothwell and Blantyre may be termed the great frontier bulwarks of the poetical and romantic part of the Clyde-all beyond being the district of commerce, cotton-mills, coal-pits, and whatever else can disgust the lover of the primitive beauties of Nature. The country below this point is, in fact, mill-ridden—fairly subjugated, tamed, tor

In every countenance that we contemplate in Glasgow, we see calculation-in every feature some rule of arithmetic, (especially addition or multiplication,) as legible as in the pages of Cocker. In Edinburgh, each physiognomy is characterized by the lineaments of either law, physic, metaphysics, or divinity. In Glasgow, there is also MIND in every face—but it is—“ mind the main chance." At the time of my first visit to the Western capital, however, it is but justice to say that there was an additional element of calculation in every countenancethat of life and death. Choleraphobia intermingled its pale and lurid hues with the tints of commercial anxiety and domestic affliction ! The inns and the theatres were deserted-man seemed cautious of associating with his species, except in places of public devotion-funeral processions superseded the cheerful promenade-and the moral atmosphere was as sombre as the physical!-In a subsequent visit, I found the streets as actively paced as those of the Strand or Cheapside-the care of commerce, but no longer the dread of pestilence, in every eye! In none of the principal streets did I see the arm-in-arm lounging of the upper classes, or the snuff-taking, toddy-tippling swarms of the lower orders, as in Auld Reekie.

We all draw imaginary portraits of what we do not see. I had pictured Glasgow, in my own mind, as an immense town, with narrow streets, and chiefly occupied by weavers, spinning-jennies, and operatives, of all descriptions, situated on the marshy banks of the Clyde. I was rather surprised and gratified to find the CITY of Glasgow constructed on the plan of the HOUSES in Edinburgh—namely, on FLATS. Contrary to the order of rank in the intellectual city, however, I found the lower flats in Glasgow occupied by the best houses, and consequently the best tenants. The Clyde-flat, between St. George's Square and the river, may compete with most parts of the New Town of Edinburgh. Above George-street and Duke-street, rise various flats and gradations of habitations and inhabitants-till we come to the most surprising phenomenon which I ever witnessed on any part of the earth's surface— A HARBOUR ON A HILL!! Looking up from one of the openings in Argyle-street, I saw, or fancied, a grove of masts far above the highest steeple in Glasgow! Well! thought I, if this be no spectral illusion,

mented, touzled, and Gulraivished, by the demon of machinery. Steam, like a pale midnight hag, kicks and spurs the sides of oppressed nature; while smoke rises on every hand, as if to express the unhappy old dame's vexation and fatigue. The centre of this is the city of Glasgow."- Chambers' Picture of Scotland.

Such is the picture drawn by a Scotchman, now living, and a warm friend to his country. Yet, if an Englishman drew this picture, Glasgow would be up in arms against him.

we need not wonder that "Birnam wood should come to Dunsinane." After half an hour's laborious ascent, scrambling from flat to flat, and from factory to factory, among cotton and carbon, sulphur and soda, I reached a lofty eminence that overlooked the great western metropolis, and found myself in-" PORT DUNDAS!" This eccentric PORT was crowded with shipping-not exactly equal in dimensions to those of the East India Docks, but fully as respectable, perhaps, as those which bore the eagled legions of Cæsar to the shores of Britain, or the warriors of WODEN to the banks of Loch Lomond.

Sauntering eastward from "PORT DUNDAS," along the extended arms of this HARBOUR ON THE HILL, and surveying, with wonder and admiration, the singular scene that stretched down from this airy crest to the margin of the Clyde-this vast emporium of operatives-this city of the shuttle-this community of cotton-spinners-this world of weavers and unwashed artisans, living in an atmosphere of smoke and steamI came, unexpectedly, to the foot of a colossal statue-not rivalling, certainly, in sculpture, the Farnese Hercules, or the Belvidere Apollobut still the statue of a far better man, and a far greater hero than either of them-the HERO of the REFORMATION! Hercules was ready enough to dispense his club-law on all occasions; but honest KNOX laboured successfully in dispensing laws of a very different character among his countrymen. Hercules prided himself on cleansing an Augean stable. How much more difficult to cleanse was the Augean stable of Popish superstition!

Honest JOHN stands on the brink of a deep and dark ravine that separates him from the ancient and venerable CATHEDRAL of Glasgow. He holds the "WORD" in his hand, and he averts his look from the Gothic fane, in which he considered the "WORD" to be then perverted from its true meaning, or veiled by monks from the universal examination, and consequent edification of mankind. But the sculptor, methinks, might have permitted the statue of the Reformer to look, with satisfaction, on the holy edifice no longer profaned by Papal rites or superstitious ceremonies. Or has the monument swerved on its pedestal, from some qualm of conscience? "Colossal in its proportions (says Chambers) and undistinguished by either likeness or costume, it seems, like the spirit of the Reformer, come back to inveigh, with outstretched arm, against the Cathedral, and, if possible, complete the work which he left unfinished at his death." There is something like an insinuation in this passage, that John Knox wished the completion of the workthe work of destruction-to be performed by means more speedy in their operation than those employed by that "edax rerum" the scythe of TIME. That scythe will indeed ultimately mow down both the statue

and the temple-but the spirit of the REFORMER appears to gain strength by years, and draw nutriment from decay!

The colleges, museums, churches, exchanges, and public edifices in Glasgow, are as well deserving of the traveller's attention as those of most great cities. But with the sight of these lions, in various countries, my eyes have been so often dimmed, that I fairly confess they are amongst the last objects which I am anxious to survey- and, strange to say, the least conducive to that silent reflection and solitary musing which form the solace of the very few unoccupied hours of a life of nearly incessant toil!

The HUNTERIAN MUSEUM, however, afforded ample materials for a couple of hours' meditation-especially as I was not cursed with the prate of a custos, but left to the uninterrupted train of my own ruminations. The collections of animals, of minerals, and of coins, would excite thoughts in the blankest brains; but to the zoologist, the geologist, and the antiquarian, the skins of wild beasts, the entrails of mother earth, and the images of vain man, afford peculiar delight. In the mind of the contemplative philosopher, these rare specimens excite various emotions, more allied, I fear, to sadness than to joy-to melancholy than to pleasure! When we see the lion and the lamb, the vulture and the dove, the tiger and the fawn, the hyena and the kid--the savage roamers of the Libyan plains and the domesticated animals of civilized Europe, all residing together in amity and peace, we are reminded of that promised Millennium which we are not destined to see on this terrestrial globe.

The sparkling gems and ponderous ores, in a neighbouring apartment, demonstrate the sagacity and industry of man, who has penetrated into the bowels of the earth which he inhabits, and dragged forth its hidden treasures, to be converted into myriads of implements for the benefit or the luxury of his species.

Farther on, ten thousand impresses of the "human face divine" on the ductile metal, attest the manifold miseries that have resulted from the fatal thirst of MAN for riches and power!

"Effodiuntur opes irritamenta malorum."

It is to be feared that the Golden Age will not realize the anticipations of the poets. Iron may rust, and brass may corrode-but gold corrupts !

The manufactories of Glasgow deserve the attention of the traveller, while its industry and opulence will command his admiration. These, however, are subjects on which I cannot dwell, in a tour of this kind.