one, which I thought he called the Back Seat. However I was not at all taken by the name (which I afterwards discovered really to be the Buck's Head), and I determined upon that which Macqueen mentioned,-the Tontine. I have had no reason to repent this decision. It is situated in a broad cheerful street, through which flows a tide of population so full and unceasing as to give a favorable idea of the prosperity of the city. The attendance, the eatables, the apartments, the beds are quite as good as at a London hotel. You may suppose how well I slept with no fear of "past vour o'clock" before my imagination *. This morning after a capital breakfast, at which we did full justice to the Scotch marmalade, we went a rambling about the town. The street in which our hotel is, had already shown us the best of it. Most of the others are dirty and ill-conditioned and abounding in abominable savours. A drizzle (which was something more than a Scotch mist) added neither to their beauty nor their cleanliness. We poked our way through a sort of market, where old women, with handkerchiefs on their heads, were squatting in the mud amongst decayed vegetables, and stinking herrings; and by dint of inquiry we at last found out the University. Had I not been told what it was, I should certainly have taken it for a madhouse. H― said that at any rate it was calculated to make men fit for one, and blessed his stars that there was nothing like it at Cambridge. We went into a gloomy court, and peeped into a sort of rotunda which

*This refers to a clever article, On the Miseries of Early Rising," in the New Monthly Magazine.

seemed to be fitted up as a museum. While we were spying at stuffed bears and ostriches, a man came up and wanted us to go in; but, having seen as much as we wished, and having no spare time, we politely declined his disinterested offer. The cathedral, to which we next went, is poor when compared with many of our own, but antiquarians admire it as a pure specimen of the early Gothic. The interior has little of the pomp of a cathedral, for it is in fact only the high church; and there is no organ, as the Presbyterians do not admit instrumental music into their worship. Nevertheless, the part fitted up as a church, answering to the choir in our cathedrals, is picturesque and striking. Three tiers of deep and complete arches enclose it on either side, and richly carved wood-work forms the facing of a gallery between the pillars. But what will you say to us for omitting to see the crypt, which has been rendered so celebrated by the adventures of Frank Osbaldistone therein? You must lay the blame partly on our restricted time, causing hurry and forgetfulness, and partly on the stupidity of the woman who acted as guide, and who left the most important part of her duties unfulfilled. We now set ourselves to find out the New Exchange, a building which Macqueen had yesterday urged us by all means to visit. We had to retrace our steps and to walk a long distance before we reached it; but our trouble was well repaid. Even I, with all my predilection for the gloomy Gothic, could not avoid being greatly struck with this noble specimen of Grecian architecture. Its proportions are worthy of its size. Within

it is a gorgeous apartment, the ceiling of which is supported by two ranges of columns, forming aisles, as it were, at the sides. One drops some fathoms deep into bathos on discovering that a room of such colossal grandeur-fit for the divan of an Eastern monarch-is appropriated to the reading of newspapers and periodicals. Certainly the arrangements for this purpose are most luxurious. In the side aisles are many tables, each lettered with the name of the paper or review to which it is devoted; and at the upper end of the centre is a sort of swing desk, on which is fixed a newspaper expressly for the use of strangers, who may at all times walk in without paying anything. The inhabitants of the town have not the same privilege, but can only gain admission by becoming subscribers or by paying at the door. This betokeneth a liberal spirit in the good folk of Glasgow.

We are now returned to our hotel, having visited in our way an arcade of very tempting shops,—really rivalling the Burlington, and I have been writing against time as fast as I could scribble. We are on the point of setting out for Dunbarton, per steam. First, though, I must pay my respects to a cold round of beef on the table. Adieu! I will write again as soon as I can,

LETTER II.

Rowardennan Inn, on the banks of Loch Lomond, 7th July.

We have just been driven back to this inn, dearest E-, by storms of wind and rain, after having struggled up a mountain pass for some distance, with the intention of reaching Aberfoyle. Had we been further advanced upon our road, to return would have been "as tedious as to go on;" but as our intended sleeping-place was about a dozen miles ahead of us, it was our wisest plan (though not, perhaps, the most heroic) to put back into port. As this is the first check we have met with, in the way of weather, it behoves us to be patient. Moreover, as it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, so is it but a sorry misfortune out of which one cannot pick some benefit. In this case the benefit is clear,-I am enabled to continue my promised journal for you. I resume from Glasgow.

On leaving the Tontine, we "hurled ourselves corporeally" (as Madame D'Arblay terms it) into a noddy, or one-horse vehicle, which conveyed us to the pier on the Clyde, where several steam-boats were smoking away. We embarked on board that which was bound for Dunbarton, and in a few minutes off we rusted, tearing up the muddy river, which is here so narrow that the great waves excited by our course swirled high up the embankment on either hand, to the great glee of a parcel of boys sitting a-top of them, who lowered their dirty naked legs to meet the splashing waters. Vessels of large burden could never have floated on this part of the Clyde, had not the channel been deepened by art; and, as the mud accumulates, it is constantly cleared away by floatmachines of ingenious construction, stationed all down the river. The banks look nearly as ornate as those of the Thames near London. Handsome villas, groves and gardens rise along them, for the consolation of the citizens. At length the channel widens, and the mouth of the Clyde expands by degrees into the main ocean. As the river increases in importance, its banks swell into steeps and eminences, and Dunbarton Castle on its abrupt and insulated rock, now appears. Castle indeed it is not, but a lump of a barrack, which, when seen too near, deforms the splendid height on which it is built; but, from where we now were, the general mass, thrown into happy obscurity by having the light behind it, looked well and picture-like. The sky, which had been gloomy all day, had cleared in front of us; while, far off at sea, beneath the blue mountains of Argyle