Glasgow (4 page)

O GLASGOW!, 1685
John Barclay

Glasgow has been the source of poetic inspiration from an early date. Before 597 St Columba, the great missionary of the Hebrides, paid a visit to the aged St Mungo at his cell on the banks of the Molendinar river. In memory of their conversation, in that green and holy place, it is said that the two old men exchanged staves and Columba composed a hymn. John Barclay, minister of Cruden in Aberdeenshire, composed the following lines which appeared, incongruously, in Skene's
Succinct Survey of the Famous City of Aberdeen
in 1685
.

1701–1750

PRETENDING TO BE GENTLEMEN

A FISHY TALE, 1702
Thomas Morer

Thomas Morer (1651–1715) was an English chaplain to a Scottish army regiment. In 1778, five years after James Boswell and Samuel Johnson journeyed to the Western Isles, Boswell lent Johnson a copy of Morer's
A Short Account of Scotland,
published in 1702. Johnson was far from impressed. ‘It is sad stuff, Sir, miserably written, as books in general then were. There is now an elegance of style universally diffused. No man now writes so ill as Martin's
Account of the Hebrides
is written. A man could not write so ill, if he should try. Set a merchant's clerk now to write, and he'll do better.' The bridge referred to by Morer was erected in 1350 (in place of the wooden bridge by which William Wallace crossed the river to attack the bishop's palace) and widened and modernised in 1770
.

Glasgow is as factious as it is rich. Yet the most considerable persons for quality are well disposed to the church. But the disaffected make up that defect with number, and sometimes call the hill men or field conventiclers to assist them.

Over the river Clyde is a very fine bridge, with a great number of arches; and on the other side is a little town, which is to the suburbs of Glasgow, as Southwark is to London. The sight of the river and the arms of Glasgow (being a fish with a ring in his mouth) put me in mind of this story, as the inhabitants report it.

A young lady being courted by a gentleman living not far from Glasgow, was presented with a ring, which after marriage, going over the river, she accidentally let fall into the water. A while after, the husband missing the ring grew jealous, and suspected she had given it to some other man whom she fancied better. This created great discontent, nor could the archbishop himself reconcile them, though he earnestly and often endeavour'd it; till one day walking in a green by the river-side, and seeing the fishermen drawing their nets, it so happened
that the bishop made a purchase of the draught, and in the mouth of one of the fishes found the ring, which had occasioned so much animosity and quarrels between the man and his wife. The bishop immediately carries the ring to the husband, convinces him of his wife's innocency, and so without much difficulty reconciles them again. And from the strangeness of the event, from this time forward, was made the arms of the town.

CLEANEST AND BEAUTIFULLEST CITY IN BRITAIN . . . 1726
Daniel Defoe

Best known as the author of
Robinson Crusoe
(1719), Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) was born in London. Throughout his life he travelled widely. He was a prolific writer and pamphleteer, whose work included polemics, novels, biographies and curiosities such as
The Complete Englishman,
which did not appear until 1890
. A Tour Through the Whole Island of Britain,
from which the present extract is taken, was published in three volumes between 1724 and 1726. Previously, he was employed by Robert Harley, a prominent politician. In exchange for securing his release from prison, Defoe agreed to act as Harley's emissary, travelling throughout Britain on fact-finding missions. Two years before the 1707 Union, Defoe spent considerable time in Scotland spying on Harley's behalf, from where he wrote: ‘I am perfectly unsuspected as corresponding with anybody in England. I converse with Presbyterian, Episcopal-Dissenter, papist and Non-Juror, and I hope with equal circumspection. I flatter you will have no complaints of my conduct. I have faithful emissaries in every company and I talk to everybody in my own way. To the merchants I am about to settle here in trade, building ships etc. With the lawyers I want to purchase a house and land to bring my family and live upon it (God knows where there is money to pay for it). Today I am going into partnership with a Member of Parliament in a glass house, tomorrow with another in a salt work . . . I am all to everyone that I may gain some.' It is worth noting that Glasgow, like most Scottish burghs, voted against the Union and that its ‘rabble' took to the streets to make its opposition known
.

With the division of Cunningham, I quitted the shire of Ayre, and the pleasantest country in Scotland, without exception: joining it to the north, and bordering on the Clyde itself, I mean the river, lies the little shire of Renfrew, or rather a barony, or a sheriffdom, call it as you will.

It is a pleasant, rich, and populous, though small country, lying on the south bank of the Clyde; the soil is not thought to be so good as in Cunningham: but that is abundantly supplied by the many good towns, the neighbourhood of Glasgow, and of the Clyde, and great commerce of both. We kept our route as near along the coast as we could, from Irwin; so that we saw all the coast of the Firth of Clyde, and the very opening of the Clyde itself, which is just at the west point, or corner of this country, for it comes to a narrow point just in that place. There are some villages and fishing towns within the mouth of the Clyde, which have more business than large port towns in Galloway and Carrick: but the first town of note is called Greenock; 'tis not an ancient place, but seems to be grown up in later years, only by being a good road for ships, and where the ships ride that come into, and go out from Glasgow, just as the ships for London do in the downs. It has a castle to command the road, and the town is well built, and has many rich trading families in it. It is the chief town on the west of Scotland for the herring fishing; and the merchants of Glasgow, who are concerned in the fishery, employ the Greenock vessels for the catching and curing the fish, and for several parts of their other trades, as well as carrying them afterwards abroad to market.

Their being ready on all hands to go to sea, makes the Glasgow merchants often leave their ships to the care of these Greenock men; and why not? for they are sensible they are their best seamen; they are also excellent pilots for those difficult seas.

The country between Pasely and Glasgow, on the bank of Clyde, I take to be one of the most agreeable places in Scotland, take its situation, its fertility, healthiness, the nearness of Glasgow, the neighbourhood of the sea, and altogether, I may say, I saw none like it.

I am now come to the bank of the Clyde: the Clyde and the Tweed may be said to cross Scotland in the south, their sources being not many miles asunder; and the two Firths, from the Firth of Clyde to the Firth of Forth, have not an interval of above twelve or fourteen miles. Nor can I refrain mentioning how easy a work it would be to form a navigation, I mean a navigation of art from the Forth to the Clyde, and so join the two seas, as the King of France has done in a place five times as far, and five hundred miles as difficult, namely from Thouloze to Narbonne. What an advantage in commerce this would be, opening the Irish trade to the merchants of Glasgow, making a communication between the west coast of Scotland, and the east coast of England, and even to London itself; nay, several ports of England, on the Irish Sea, from Liverpool northward, would all trade with London by such a canal.

I am now crossed the Clyde to Glasgow, and I went over dry-footed without the bridge; on which occasion I cannot but observe how
different a face the river presented itself in, at those two several times when only I was there; at the first, being in the month of June, the river was so low, that not the horses and carts only passed it just above the bridge, but the children and boys playing about, went everywhere, as if there was no river, only some little spreading brook, or wash, like such as we have at Enfield-Wash, Chelston-Wash in Middlesex. But my next journey satisfied me, when coming into Glasgow from the east side, I found the river not only had filled up all the arches of the bridge, to the infinite damage of the inhabitants, besides putting them into the greatest consternation imaginable, for fear of their houses being driven away by the violence of the water, and the whole city was not without apprehension that their bridge would have given way too, which would have been a terrible loss to them, for 'tis as fine a bridge as most in Scotland.

Glasgow is, indeed, a very fine city; the four principal streets are the fairest for breadth, and the finest built that I have ever seen in one city together. The houses are all of stone, and generally equal and uniform in height, as well as in front; the lower storey generally stands on vast square Doric columns, not round pillars, and arches between give passage into the shops, adding to the strength as well as beauty of the building; in a word, 'tis the cleanest and beautifullest, and best-built city in Britain, London excepted.

Glasgow is a city of business; here is the face of trade, as well foreign as home trade; and I may say, 'tis the only city in Scotland, at this time, that apparently increases and improves in both. The Union has answered its end to them more than any other part of Scotland, for their trade is new-formed by it; and, as the Union opened the door to the Scots in our American colonies, the Glasgow merchants presently fell in with the opportunity; and though, when the Union was making, the rabble of Glasgow made the most formidable attempt to prevent it, yet, now they know better, for they have the greatest addition to their trade by it imaginable; and I am assured, that they send near fifty sail of ships every year to Virginia, New England, and other English colonies in America, and are every year increasing.

NOTHING BUT GOOD LOOKS AND FINE CLOTHES, 1743
Alexander Carlyle

Alexander Carlyle (1722–1805), who was nicknamed ‘Jupiter' because of his imposing demeanour, was born in East Lothian and educated at the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Leiden. From 1748 until his
death he was minister at Inveresk on the outskirts of Musselburgh. He had a wide circle of friends, including David Hume, Adam Smith and Tobias Smollett. Unlike many of his fellow clergy he was fond of the theatre, liked to dance and was a keen card player. Unsubstantiated rumours suggest that he once rode naked over the links at Musselburgh. His remembrance of Glasgow, which appeared in his posthumously published popular
Autobiography,
while fond and colourful, also displays the sense of innate superiority that is an enduring Edinburgh trait
.