"opulent and handsome," and Boswell "beautiful." Nearly two centuries earlier Camden had said that "for pleasant situation, apple-trees, and other like fruit-trees, it is much commended."[1] Defoe describes it as "indeed a very fine city; the four principal streets are the fairest for breadth, and the finest built that I have ever seen in one city together. It is the cleanest, and beautifullest, and best built city in Britain, London excepted."[2] Another traveller of about the same date says that "it is the beautifullest little city he had seen in Britain. It stands deliciously on the banks of the River Clyde."[3] In June, 1757, John Wesley went up to the top of the cathedral steeple. "It gave us a fine prospect," he writes, "both of the city and the adjacent country. A more fruitful and better cultivated plain is scarce to be seen in England."[4] Smollett swells the general chorus of praise: "Glasgow is the pride of Scotland. It is one of the prettiest towns in Europe."[5] Pennant, who visited it the year before Johnson, calls it "the best built of any second-rate city I ever saw. The view from the Cross has an air of vast magnificence."[6]
At the Rebellion of 1745 the citizens had shown the greatest loyalty. They raised and supported at their own expense two battalions of six hundred men each, who joined the duke's army. Their town was occupied by the Pretender's forces, who for ten days lived there at free quarters. They had had to pay, moreover, two heavy fines, amounting to more than nine thousand pounds, imposed on them for their fidelity to the Hanoverian Family. In 1749, in answer to their petition for relief, they received a grant from Parliament of ten thousand pounds.[7] On April 24 of that same year a stage-coach began to run between Glasgow and Edinburgh, starting from Edinburgh every Monday and Thursday, and from Glasgow every Tuesday and Friday. "Every person pays nine shillings fare, and is allowed a stone-weight of luggage."[8] By the year 1783 far greater facilities were afforded. In John Tait's Directory for Glasgow of that year (p. 77) it is announced that "three machines set out from each town every day at eight morning. They stop on the road and change horses. Tickets, 10s. 6d.
- ↑ Camden's Description of Scotland, 2nd ed. p. 81.
- ↑ Defoe's Tour through Great Britain: Scotland, p. 83.
- ↑ J. Macky's Journey through Scotland, ed. 1723, p. 295.
- ↑ Wesley's Journal, ii. 410.
- ↑ Humphry Clinker, iii. 14, 33.
- ↑ Voyage to the Hebrides, ed. 1774, p. 127.
- ↑ Scots Magazine, 1749, p. 202.
- ↑ Scots Magazine, 1749, p. 253.
