In this exhibition of sculpture, I discover Walter Scott, Robert Burns, David Livingstone, James Watt, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Thomas Campbell, and Sir Robert Peel. Some are on foot, some on horseback. There are none driving, but there is Scott who, in the centre of this Kensal Green, is perched on the summit of a column eighty feet high. It is enough to make the tallest chimney of the neighbourhood topple over with envy. By dint of a little squeezing, it would be easy to make room for a dozen more statues.
In Queen's Street, quite close to George Square, we find the Royal Exchange—an elegant building in the Corinthian style—in front of which stands an equestrian statue of gigantic dimensions.
It is Wellington—the inevitable, the eternal, the everlasting Wellington.
Oh, what a bore that Wellington is!
This statue was erected at the expense of the town for a sum of £10,000.
Wellington will never know what he has cost his compatriots.
Let us go up George Street, turn to the left by High Street, towards the north-east, and we shall come to the Cathedral, the only one which the fanatic vandalism of the Puritans spared. I was told in Scotland that this is how it escaped. The Puritans had come to Glasgow in 1567 to destroy the Cathedral of Saint Mungo. But a gardener, a practical Scot of the neighbourhood, reasoned with them in the following manner:
"My friends, you are come with the meritorious intention of destroying this temple of popery. But why destroy the edifice? It will cost a mint of money to build such another. Could not you use this one and worship God in it after our own manner?"
The Puritans, who were Scots too, saw the force of the argument and the cathedral was saved.
The edifice is gothic, and very handsome. I recommend especially the crypt, under the choir. The windows are most remarkable.