50 Recollections of a Gardening Tour. 



wanted at the time the station house was built, in order to pro- 

 vide room for the additional regulations that may be supposed 

 to become necessary as the traffic on the railway increases ; but 

 the board, whether covered with lines or not, should always be 

 sufficiently large to fill the whole of the panel. 



We would carry this principle of rendering writing architec- 

 tural to turnpike houses and gates, and to the signs and names of 

 inns, public-houses, and shops; to names on the gates of manu- 

 factories; to those on private doors; to the names of gentlemen's 

 seats, which, we think, ought to be sculptured on sunk or raised 

 panels or shields on their entrance lodges or gates; to the names 

 of cottages and villages ; and, in short, to every architectural 

 structure where a name was required, or would be useful. 



Had the art of writing been coeval with that of architecture, 

 there is little doubt that writing would have been introduced on 

 buildings in an architectural manner, as ornaments of leaves and 

 flowers have been ; but since this could not be done by ancient 

 architects, it is for the modern artist to supply the defect, and 

 introduce wi'iting on edifices artistically, and, in doing so, to 

 produce something superior to the mode of putting the hierogly- 

 phics on the Egyptian tombs or obelisks, or the letters on the 

 jambs of the shop-doors in Pompeii, or over the doors and 

 windows of shops in modern towns. 



Glasgow we found greatly increased in extent, even since 1831, 

 when we last saw it, and improved also in its street architecture, 

 which is always a gratifying proof that taste is spreading among 

 the mass of society. The number of manufactories is greatly 

 increased, and such a forest of engine chimneys has been erected 

 in and around the city in consequence of the great increase in the 

 iron manufacture within the last seven years, that the atmosphere, 

 within a circle of two or three miles in diameter, is constantly 

 charged with coal-smoke, in consequence of which trees and 

 shrubs of even the commonest kinds are rarely seen in a thriving 

 state. This cannot be owing to the earthy part of the smoke 

 resting on the leaves, because there is scarcely a day passes with- 

 out rain to wash it off. The stems are all uniformly black, be- 

 cause on the same surface of bark on these the soot has fallen 

 summer and winter for several years; but the leaves, though 

 thin, ragged, and sickly, are not so black as those of the trees in 

 the London squares. Such, at least, was the impression made 

 on us ; heightened, no doubt, by the answer always given when 

 asking why such and such trees, and particularly the Irish yew, 

 the holly, the ivy, &c, were not planted in the different ceme- 

 teries now laying out, that these and other evergreens would not 

 grow on account of the smoke. There are three or four large 

 cemeteries, but being pressed for time, and the weather being 

 very unfavourable, we only entered two of them ; one was the 



