CITY OF GLASGOW. CATHEDRAL. 129 



of industry thus opened up, to the rapidly increasing population, to the numerous 

 monuments with which successful trade has embellished the landscape, to the 

 lordly mansion and its demesne, rising on the site of their cottage-predecessors, 

 to the banks of the river, sparkling with architectural elegance, odorous with 

 the breath of exotics, and, in every thing, indicative of a " luxury unknown to 

 ancestors" the poet of " Hope" answers : 



" Ami call ye tliis improvement f to have changed 

 My native Clyde, tliy once romantic shore ? 

 Where Nature's face is banished, and estranged, 

 And Heaven reflected in thy wave no more !". . . . 



" Improvement ! smiles it in the poor man's eyes, 

 Or hlooms it in the cheek of Labour 1 No ! 

 To gorge a few with Trade's precarious prize, 

 We banish rural life, and breathe unwholesome skies." 



" 'Tis therefore I complain 



That thou no more through pastoral scenes shouldst glide, 



My WALLACE'S own stream! my once romantic Clyde!" CAMPBELL. 



The city of Glasgow, with its suburbs so universally known as a vast com- 

 mercial emporium is said to cover a space of seven hundred acres of ground, 

 containing a dense and rapidly increasing population.* Its tide of prosperity 

 began with the Union of the two countries, and has continued to flow in upon 

 its spirited citizens with increasing favour down to the present time. To the 

 invention of the spinning-jenny, by Arkwright, to the improvements of the 

 steam-engine by Watt, and the boundless supply of coal with which the manu- 

 factories are furnished, Glasgow is chiefly indebted for her long and prosperous 

 trade. Cotton goods, although the staple trade of the place, are not the only 

 manufactures. Steam-engines are here constructed to a vast extent ; brass and 

 iron foundries are actively employed ; works for the construction of cotton, 

 flax, and woollen machinery; admirable type foundries, chemical works and, 

 in short, whatever is connected with art or luxury, is here to be met with in 

 the greatest perfection. To detail the particulars of the exports and imports of 

 Glasgow, would be to furnish a catalogue of all that contributes to the convenience 



In 1831, the population amounted to nearly two hundred and three thousand. Twenty years ago, 

 Glasgow had fifty-four mills for spinning cotton, containing six hundred thousand spindles; and the num- 

 ber has been much augmented since then. In 1825, fifty-four power-loom factories, for the weaving of 

 various kinds of cotton goods, were in activity. In 1818, the hand-looms employed were calculated at 

 thirty-two thousand. The suburbs contain vast mines of coal, ironstone, limestone, freestone, whinstone, 

 fire and potters' clay, and many valuable minerals ; but of all these coal is by far the most valuable, as 

 indispensable to the support of the manufacturers. 

 VOL. II. L L 



