CHAPTER XIII.
City of Glasgow—Spirit of the place—Trade and Manufactures—The Broomielaw—Steam—George's Square—Monuments to Sir Walter Scott, Sir John Moore, and James Watt—Sketch of the Life of Watt—Glasgow University—Reminiscences—Brougham—Sir D. K. Sandford—Professor Nichol and others—High Kirk, or Glasgow Cathedral—Martyrdom of Jerome Russel and John Kennedy.
Taking the steam-cars from Edinburgh, we arrive at Glasgow, a distance of forty-four miles, in a couple of hours. As Edinburgh is the representative of Scottish literature and refinement, Glasgow is the representative of its commerce and manufactures. It is an immense city, and contains a prodigious number of inhabitants. At the period of the Union it had a population of only twelve thousand: since which time it has doubled this number twelve or thirteen times, and now contains nearly three hundred thousand inhabitants. It owes this unprecedented increase to its trade, domestic and foreign, which is almost unparalleled in its extent. There is probably not a single inland town in Great Britain, with the exception of London, which can show such a shipping list.
Glasgow has ever been distinguished for its mechanical ingenuity, its industry and enterprise. Its situation doubtless is highly favorable, but without an intelligent, ingenious and active population, it could never have reached such a height of prosperity.
But it is not our intention to visit this commercial city as tourists. There are enough such to describe her agreeable situation, and handsome public edifices, her long and elegant streets, her beautiful "green," and magnificent river. At present we shall not fatigue ourselves with visiting the Royal Exchange, the Royal Bank, the Tontine and the Assembly Rooms. Neither shall we trouble our readers to go with us through Queen street, St. Vincent street, Greenhill Place, or Woodside Crescent.
It might be worth while however, to look into some of those immense factories; from which rise innumerable huge chimnies, some of which overtop the steeples and towers of the churches, and reach far up into the heavens.[124] Thousands and thousands of spindles and power looms, with thousands and thousands of human hands and heads are moving there from morn to night, and from night to morn. What masses of complicated and beautiful machinery! What prodigious steam-engines, great hearts of power in the centres of little worlds, giving life energy and motion to the whole. Here is a single warehouse, as it is called, for the sale of manufactured goods, containing no less than two hundred clerks. What piles of silks and shawls, cottons and calicoes! The productions of Glasgow reach every part of the world. You will find them in India, China, and the United States, in the wilds of Africa and the jungles of Burmah, amid the snows of Labrador, and the savannahs of Georgia.
But let us go down to the Broomielaw, and take a look at the river Clyde. That mile of masts, and those immense steamers, plying up and down the river, connect Glasgow with every part of the British Empire and the world.
What grand agency has accomplished all this? Steam!—steam, under the guidance and control of genius and enterprise. The extended prosperity of Glasgow commenced with the inventions of Watt, the greatest mechanical genius of the age, and the first man that constructed a steam-engine of much practical use. Steam has raised all those huge factories which we have been admiring, and keeps their innumerable wheels and pistons, spindles and power looms in motion. Steam it is which brings untold masses of coal and iron from the bowels of the earth, and converts them into machinery and motive power. Yonder it comes, rolling and dashing, in a long train of cars and carriages filled with the produce and population of the land. Here it gives life and energy to a cotton mill with a thousand looms! There it casts off, from day to day, the myriads of printed sheets which spread intelligence through the country. All around us it moves the cranks and pullies, ropes and wires, wheels and tools, which work such wonders in beating and grinding, cutting and carving, polishing and dyeing. Steam has added thousands, nay millions to the annual income of Glasgow. It has augmented the resources of Great Britain to such an extent that it saves seventy millions of dollars annually in the matter of motive power alone! No pen can describe the additions which it has made in other parts of the world to their manufactures and commerce. It has brought all nations into more intimate relations, and is yet destined, in many respects, to revolutionize the world.
Let us go then to George's Square, near the centre of the city, and look at Chantrey's monument of the man who has done so much to bring about such a change. The Square contains also a fine monument of Sir Walter Scott, in the form of a fluted Doric column, about eighty feet high, surmounted by a colossal statue of "the great magician of the north." He is represented standing in an easy attitude, with a shepherd's plaid thrown half around his body. The likeness is said to be remarkably good. It has that expression of shrewdness, honesty and good nature for which he was distinguished, but none of that ideal elevation which graces the countenances of Schiller, Goethe and Shakspeare. Immediately in front of this monument, is a beautiful pedestrian statue in bronze, by Flaxman, of Sir John Moore, the subject of Wolfe's exquisite lyric,—