GLASGOW.

SITUATION—HISTORICAL NOTICES GENERAL STATISTICS OF POPULATION—COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES—EDUCATION AND LITERATURE CHARITABLE AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS, ETC.

Glasgow, the commercial metropolis of Scotland, and the third city in the United Kingdom in wealth, population, and manufacturing and commercial importance, is situate in Lanarkshire, in the lower part of the basin of the Clyde; about twenty miles from the Atlantic Ocean, and nearly double that distance from the German Sea. The fine range of the Campsie and Kilpatrick hills, forms a screen around it, from north-east to north-west, at the distance of eight to ten miles, and the uplands of Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire swell beautifully up on the east, south, and south-west. The climate is temerate, but, from its vicinity to the sea, and the high, grounds in the neighbourhood, it is much subject to humidity. St. Mungo, or, as he has also been styled, St. Kentigern, is the reputed founder of the city. Somewhere about the year 560, he is supposed to have founded the bishoprick of Glasgow, where the older and upper part of the town still remains. In those rude times, the vicinity of churches and churchmen was eagerly desired from the comparative security they afforded; and thus, the nascent elements of the future city, under the pastoral protection of the good saint and his pious successors

had leisure afforded them to extend and mature their natural capacities for improvement. The annals of Glasgow, from the period above mentioned to the early part of the twelfth century, are involved in the obscurity which overshadows nearly the whole contemporary history of those rude ages, a fact we are disposed to acquiesce in rather cheerfully, as, where little is known, little probably exists that it would be useful to know. The first fact of any importance which emerges from the clouds of its earlier history, is the erection of its noble Cathedral, which, for so many centuries, has witnessed the growing prosperity and enlargement of the city, forming a fine link between the past and the present, and throwing the shadow of its venerable magnificence upon scenes. memorable in Scottish history, but upon which modern civilization has impressed an entirely new character. This fine old Minster* was erected by John Achaius,

*This venerable building contained formerly three churches, one of which, the Old Barony, was situated in a vault, but now there is only one, a new church having recently been erected, in a different part of the city, in place of the second, the space occupied by which has been thrown into the choir, or central part of the fabric. Having fallen, of late years, much into decay, the Government, the custodiers of the cathedral, have agreed to repair and renew certain parts of the building; and plans for its renovation having been prepared by an eminent architect, the Corporation of Glasgow has granted a thousand pounds towards the object; other public bodies are expected also to contribute, and a private subscription is in flourishing progress, whilst we write, for the same laudable purpose. The revenues of the see of Glasgow were at one time very considerable, as, besides the royalty and baronies of Glasgow, eighteen baronies of land, in various parts of the kingdom, belonged to it, besides a large estate in Cumberland, denominated the spiritual dukedom. Part of these revenues have fallen into the University of Glasgow, and part to the crown.

"Conceive, an extensive range of low-browed, dark, and twilight vaults, such as are used for sepulchres in other countries, and had long been dedicated to the same purpose in this, a portion of which was seated with pews, and used as a church. The part of the vaults thus occupied, though capable of containing a congregation of many hundreds, bore a small proportion to the darker and more extensive caverns which yawned around what may be termed the inhabited space. In those waste regions of oblivion, dusky banners and tattered escutcheons indicated the graves of those who were once, doubtless, 'princes in Israel.' Inscriptions, which could only be read by the painful antiquary, in language as obsolete as the act of devotional charity which they implored, invited the passengers to pray for the souls of those whose bodies rested beneath."—Rob Roy, vol. ii., p. 267.

Bishop of Glasgow, in 1133, or, according to M'Ure, in 1136, in the reign of David the First, whose pious largesses to the clergy obtained for him the name and honours of a saint, but drew from one of his impoverished successors the splenetic remark, that "he had been a sair saunct for the crown."

About forty years after the building of the Cathedral, William the Lion granted a charter to the bishop, to hold " a weekly mercat" in Glasgow, and a few weeks after, another was obtained for an annual fair. In these concessions of a despotic sovereign, we behold the rude and early germs of the future wealth and commercial greatness of Glasgow. The same indulgent sovereign completed the emancipation of the city, by erecting it into a burgh of regality, and thus placing its rights of independent traffic upon a broad and liberal basis. The new burgh was, however, unfortunately situated betwixt the more ancient royal burghs of Rutherglen and Renfrew, who beheld, with a jealous eye, its growing prosperity; and their rival exactions, and prescriptive immunities, for a time impeded the progress of the infant community, until the city obtained a charter of relief and independence, in 1242, from Alexander the Second.*

Some of the details of the early history of Glasgow, after it had fairly started on its career as an independent community, are not a little curious and instructive, from their graphic simplicity and statistical interest, but there is little to interest the general reader, till we turn the

* It is not a little curious to contemplate the "revenges which the restless whirligig of time" is sure to bring about. Whilst Glasgow has shot up into the third city of the British empire, Rutherglen and Renfrew, whose ancient importance is only to be traced in a few pages of Scottish history, have dwindled into absolute insignificance under the overshadowing influence of their ancient rival, whose commercial relations are now commensurate with the limits of civilization and commerce.