Had Loch Lomond Been In A
Happier Climate, It Would Have Been The Boast Of Wealth And Vanity
To Own One Of The Little Spots Which It Incloses, And To Have
Employed Upon It All The Arts Of Embellishment.
But as it is, the
islets, which court the gazer at a distance, disgust him at his
approach, when he finds, instead of soft lawns; and shady thickets,
nothing more than uncultivated ruggedness.
Where the Loch discharges itself into a river, called the Leven, we
passed a night with Mr. Smollet, a relation of Doctor Smollet, to
whose memory he has raised an obelisk on the bank near the house in
which he was born. The civility and respect which we found at
every place, it is ungrateful to omit, and tedious to repeat. Here
we were met by a post-chaise, that conveyed us to Glasgow.
To describe a city so much frequented as Glasgow, is unnecessary.
The prosperity of its commerce appears by the greatness of many
private houses, and a general appearance of wealth. It is the only
episcopal city whose cathedral was left standing in the rage of
Reformation. It is now divided into many separate places of
worship, which, taken all together, compose a great pile, that had
been some centuries in building, but was never finished; for the
change of religion intercepted its progress, before the cross isle
was added, which seems essential to a Gothick cathedral.
The college has not had a sufficient share of the increasing
magnificence of the place. The session was begun; for it commences
on the tenth of October and continues to the tenth of June, but the
students appeared not numerous, being, I suppose, not yet returned
from their several homes. The division of the academical year into
one session, and one recess, seems to me better accommodated to the
present state of life, than that variegation of time by terms and
vacations derived from distant centuries, in which it was probably
convenient, and still continued in the English universities. So
many solid months as the Scotch scheme of education joins together,
allow and encourage a plan for each part of the year; but with us,
he that has settled himself to study in the college is soon tempted
into the country, and he that has adjusted his life in the country,
is summoned back to his college.
Yet when I have allowed to the universities of Scotland a more
rational distribution of time, I have given them, so far as my
inquiries have informed me, all that they can claim. The students,
for the most part, go thither boys, and depart before they are men;
they carry with them little fundamental knowledge, and therefore
the superstructure cannot be lofty. The grammar schools are not
generally well supplied; for the character of a school-master being
there less honourable than in England, is seldom accepted by men
who are capable to adorn it, and where the school has been
deficient, the college can effect little.
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