low together on the grass in broad daylight. There is a fine monument to Nelson in the space, one hundred and forty-three feet high, said to be a copy of Trajan's Pillar at Rome.

The streets at the west end of Glasgow are handsome, and far more attractive than those of London. The houses are built of an ash-colored sandstone, which is easily worked, and as it does not readily absorb the smoke of the bituminous coal, it keeps clean for a considerable time. Rows of buildings and whole streets are constructed of it. Argyle, Buchanan, and Queen Streets are the principal thoroughfares, and they are lined with handsome shops, dwellings, and public edifices, nearly all of which are of the stone alluded to. The Exchange and some of the banks are solid, imposing structures. The residences at the west end are the finest erections, and command especial notice. They excel, in many cases, the much extolled palaces of the fashionable quarter of London, and are both pretty and clean externally.

The city lies on very irregular ground, and forcibly reminds the American of Baltimore in some particulars; a place it very much resembles, both in the number of its hills and the variety of its monuments.

In St. George's Square, there is a fluted Doric column to the memory of Sir Walter Scott, eighty feet high; and pedestrian statues to Sir John Moore, and Watt, the improver of the steamengine; while in front of the Exchange is a bronze equestrian image of Wellington, and in the Irongate, at the Market Cross, one of William of Orange. The old part of the city is dull and singular. The streets are narrow, the houses high. They are mostly inhabited by the poor, and built in a style of architecture by no means fascinating. The new streets are wide, straight, and clean. They cross each other at right angles, and are well paved and lighted. The Bromelaw fronts on the Clyde, and is very wide, affording a fine view the entire length of the city, looking down stream from the bridge. It is a noble avenue, not unlike the Levee at New Orleans in some respects, and at times almost as much crowded. The bridge across the river is not so large, but in every way as strongly built as London Bridge. The traveller who has visited the English cities before going to Glasgow forms a favorable opinion of the Scottish commercial capital, and sees less that is objectionable in its streets than will meet his gaze in the majority of the seaports of England.

The inhabitants are friendly and intelligent, but cautious and distrustful. They are active and industrious, and keep their streets tolerably free from beggars, so much so as to cause the stranger who has been in England to notice the fact.

Near the city, on a mount once a retreat of the Druids, is a modern burial-place called the Necropolis, which contains many tombs. The land is high, rugged, and commanding; and it affords a fine prospect of the surrounding country. On the very summit stands a towering monument to JOHN KNOX, the Reformer, on the top of which is a fine statue of the stern Presbyterian holding a Bible in one hand, and apparently looking down upon his native city with an ever watchful eye. The grounds are tastefully laid out, and many of the tombs are chaste and elegant. One to Motherwell, the poet, is particularly good on account of the fine bust of the bard it contains. I noticed much affectation of grief in the forms and epitaphs of some of the tombs, and one or two of them were overstrained attempts at originality and eccentricity deserving rebuke. As we were coming out of the ground, a man in the costume of a laborer was applying for admittance, but was not allowed to enter, "because," said the gatekeeper, "you are not dressed well enough." They don't bury poor people in that graveyard, thought I.

Immediately below the Necropolis, on the opposite bank of the Molindinar Burn, located on high ground, stands the ancient Cathedral of Glasgow, one of the splendid structures of the Catholics, erected as early as 1133. It lies directly in front of the statue of the great Reformer, and makes, when viewed from the eminence, a fine foreground to the splendid prospect below. The crypt is a noble work; and the roof considered by competent judges one of the best specimens of Gothic groining and masonry extant. It is within it that Sir Walter Scott laid one of the finest scenes in "Rob Roy," and being desirous to learn the precise place, I made inquiry of the old sexton. He grew eloquent at once, and replied: "Yer standin' on it noo, mon. That's just the spot, and there is the column against which the pulpit was raised in which the minister was preaching. Francis Osbaldistone leaned against this shaft, and Andrew Fairservice, ye ken him? stood alang-side o' Francis, and as he was learned in the true doctrines o' the kirk, listened whether the preacher said onything contrary to John Knox's views. While they were standin' there, Rob Roy cam' in by that door, and, stealing stealthily behind Francis, touched his shoulder, and whispered him that Rashleigh was in town to assassinate him. Ye knaw the rest. Ah! yes, that's just the vary place; but there are nae many persons ask me aboot it. Ye maun hae read much o' Sir Walter's writing, or I'm mista'en."

I told him that my reading was not extensive, but what it was I remembered, and asked him for the great column to which the novelist makes allusion. "There," said he, pointing to a glorious supporter of the gloomy crypt. "That's it, an' it's a' solid stone and mortar; and there is the main arch; eight different arches spring from that, and it's considered by architects the finest piece o' masonry in Scotland. When her Majesty was here, she asked aboot it, and stood just where ye are now when I showed it her." The old fellow praised the queen, and, in his laudations of her, forgot the splendid work. It is massive and wonderful, convincing the modern how superior the ancients were in architecture.

Until within a few years, the building was gradually falling to decay, and the crypt was scarcely ever visited in consequence of the dampness of the department, and the faint light which entered through the choked-up windows. The government sent an architect down from London to put it in repair and restore it as far as possible; which work was admirably done, and the old pile is now clean and well lighted, affording the traveller an opportunity of examining it thoroughly.

On the wall of the north porch is a slab of marble erected to the memory of nine persons named, who, according to the inscription, "suffered at the Cross of Glasgow for their testimony to the covenants and works of reformation, because they durst not own the authority of the then tyrants destroying the same, betwixt 1666 and 1688." Some verses of indifferent merit follow, and though the prose record is badly written, it evidently alludes to the murders perpetrated during the viceroyalty of James the Second in Scotland when Duke of York, and after, while he sat on the throne of Great Britain as king.

The famous university is a sombre, heavy Gothic building, in a gloomy part of the olden city, and has no attractions beyond its age and the celebrated names connected with it. The principal room is a lofty apartment, but slightly furnished, and now used as a reading-room by the faculty. The grounds are large, but not in good order, although they were then undergoing considerable improvement, and in a few years will be a splendid promenade. At the eastern extrémity, on the side of the hill under a row of thorns, is the scene of the encounter between Rashleigh and Francis Osbaldistone, so graphically described by Scott in "Rob Roy." An old gardener conducted me to the spot. "But," said he, "the place is changed since Sir Walter's day." And truly it is. The Molindinar Burn is now arched over, and flows along under a covering of bricks and mortar, no longer forming the main feature in the landscape, nor adding to the beauties of the grounds.

All old cities have something historical to claim attention, and those places mentioned in the preceding paragraphs are the principal ones in Glasgow. A few days did not allow much opportunity for learning the habits of the people, or their social condition. I was content with a hasty glance at the city, and not disposed to search out places of folly or wretchedness. Mine host was a true Scot, and his house abominably dirty, and by no means deserving public patronage, although he thought otherwise.

Before leaving, I went into a bookstore, on one of the principal streets, to purchase a copy of Tannahill's Poems, when, observing the volume handed me was printed in Belfast, I asked whether it was perfect. "That I can't tell," replied the shopman; "but suspect not, as the only things really perfect we can get from Ireland are-beggars!" It appears that Pat and Sawney don't love each other violently.

CHAPTER XV.

AYR-BURNS'S COTTAGE-KIRK ALLOWAY, AND "THE BANKS O' DOON."

THE lands made celebrated by Burns are now included in the European tour, and he who does not visit them is considered deficient in taste. I went to Ayr, through the towns of Paisley, Irvin, and Troon, and passed several hours in peaceful reflection on the classic "banks o' bonnie Doon." The town of Ayr lies on both sides of the river from which it takes its name, and within sight of the ocean. The "auld brig" is decidedly and undeniably ugly, with a narrow thoroughfare for foot-passengers only. The main arch is sprung, leading the observer to think the boast made by the structure, in the poem,

"I'll be a brig when you're a shapeless cairn!"

will most signally fail of fulfilment, as the new viaduct is both solid and in good condition.

Ayr is outrageously filthy, very badly paved, has crooked streets, considerable shipping, an old castle, once famous, but now a soldier's barracks. There is a fine statue of Wallace, the great patriot of Scotland, in a niche in front of the Town Hall, sculptured by Thom, the famous self-taught artist of Ayrshire; and it redeems the town from contempt.

The day was delightfully clear, and favorable to pedestrianism. I walked out to the birthplace of the poet, along a pleasant road, lined, the greater part of the distance, with hedges of thorns. On some parts of the route there were splendid fields waving with yellow grain, ready for the sickle, and old and young were busy gathering the bountiful harvest.

At a turn in the road, about two miles from the town, I suddenly came upon a cottage, over the door of which there is a sign