(Copy) Edinburgh. July 11, 1845. My dear Sister*1 Many thanks to you for the letter received this morning, also to the other writers who accompanied it with their kind communications. I am happy to hear that you have had some amusement lately and that Mr Twining and his family have been so civil; it is a pity they are going away from our neighbourhood, to which I much fear they will not return. For myself I am heartily tired of dinner parties, though I should not object to evening parties, if I were not kept up too late. I heard Mrs Murray of Gartshore sing again at the Swintons' house; she has the finest voice and sings with more feeling than any performer I ever heard off the stage: better than Aunt Harriette; and she knows whole operas perfectly by heart, and gives them -- half acted, half sung, à merveille. I see by the newspaper that the Queen has visited Mrs Lawrence:- was it on the day you were there? Her Majesty might very well pass unobserved in the crowd you describe. It is reported that she is coming again to Scotland where she is not much of a favourite:- I hope to be off before the bustle begins. We had a pleasant trip to Burnt Island, gathered a good many plants and my children behaved remarkably well. If I do nothing else, I keep a Class in good order, and (though I repeat it myself) am constantly assured that such an orderly set of Students never met in the Gardens before. I cannot say that I am enamoured

of the task of keeping 130 Medical Students in full attention to me, being quite conscious that I bore them beyond expression;-- and I should prefer being Professor of some branch of Science, which they all would appreciate, and not be obliged to give Lectures which they only attend to pass their examinations. Thus, you see, what they like I do not, and what I do like they won't appreciate. Yesterday I went to Greenock to see Charles Graham and to carry him innumerable things which he had left behind. Just as the omnibus came to the door for me, one of the Miss Grahams appeared, bringing a letter, another a picture, a third with a shirt, &c., &c., and so on, to the amount of 8 more articles ! By this delay I nearly lost my passage and rendered the driver and my fellow insides quite furious. You may guess how savage I was! Poor Dr Graham appears relieved, now that the parting with his son is over, and he has even rallied a little yesterday and today. From this place my way to Linlithgow lay through a pretty country; but, as you know, such is not the general character of the land between the Firth of Forth and Clyde. Until reaching th the latter river, the horrid bleak moors, naked, detached, uncomfortable houses, shafts of coal pits, dirty cottages and dirtier children, backward corn-crops, and incessant rain made me almost shudder; they were no new sight to me certainly, but they had never looked half so bad before. The termination of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railroad is a hideously ugly tunnel, excavated in the hill on which the Lunatic Asylum stands, and I suppose the length may be nearly 2 miles; it is all soiled with soot and smoke,

and the whole body of Guards and Engineers were so filthy that the entrance to this tunnel rather resembled the mouth of a coal pit than the gay tunnels through which we dash on the G[rea]t Western and Birmingham lines. The rock is not even smoothed and faced at the entrance, and as we hurried down the inclined plane. I could not help ejaculating : facilis descensus Averni*2. It comes out (or rather we were shot out) close by Grimshaw's Hotel, where the whole ground, instead of an open airy space like Euston Square, is covered by enormous towering Warehouses, with tiers of stories over stories and not a single handsome object to indicate the termination of this great Artery in the heart of the Capital of the West of Scotland. Disgusted and dejected, I got into an omnibus for the Greenock train, and what a Town did I traverse! Streets which I had once thought spacious, now contracted into lanes - houses that formerly seemed lofty dwindled into very second rate affairs. I barely recognised the Irongate as we entered it from Queen Street, and as I ran my eye along its dim outline of buildings. The Exchange looked well, though they have stuck up the stiffest possible figure of William IVth. on horseback immediately in front of it; but how black was this fine edifice and all the houses in Queen Street! I could have thought it was Tottenham Court Road, cut up into sections. The Broomielaw Bridge is very handsome, but certainly smaller than it was! The Terminus of the Greenock (Ardrossan &c.) Railroad is between the backs of houses, where the only view is of corkscrew common stairs, and grey or red tiles. The Guards have no regimentals

and they are few and far between. From the road, for the first 5 miles, there is a beautiful view of Glasgow, presenting one novel and to me charming object: Tennent's new Stack"[sic]. Now you may laugh if you like or grow angry, or both, but the fact is, this new chimney is a most elegant and graceful thing. I am in earnest:-- it is wonderfully fine; quite as high and with proportions like what I give you below. I could not help admiring its great elevation and graceful form, though "I knew from the smoke that so gracefully curled" what was going on below in the busy world below, and I pitied the surrounding country to which its pestilential breath must be carried. Glasgow Cathedral looked black and dumpy,-- Garnet Hill gawky, but Woodside Crescent uncommonly well. However all this time the train is moving and we are down at Govan, its Church spire peeping from the trees, in boasted imitation of Stratford upon Avon. Then did I spy the corn covered slopes and wooded crest of Jordan Hill! The house is still playing bo-peep through the foliage and it brought back some of my few pleasant reminiscences of Glasgow, though all who made it once dear to me are far scattered or dead. The Railway passes over Paisley, and I felt like the Diable Boiteux*3 gazing down on oh! what a world beneath ! what an Asmodeus*3 was I!

Wretched squalid thatched cottages, low manufactories, narrow streets and the river Cart running like a foul ink stream through the dirtiest proof sheets of the vilest of authors! Speed on good train! never was I so thankful for a Railroad. We crossed Paisley and the huge black peat bog that skirts it, sighted the Clyde and the lovely hills of Kilpatrick and Bowling Bay and the Elysium beyond. After catching occasional peeps of Dunglass and Dunottar through the woods of Blantyre, all smiling with the brightest green, we opened Dumbarton and gained the most magnificent views I have anywhere beheld. Dumbarton Rock itself is a blot on the Clyde and only looks well from a distance, for it is out of place and ugly in form, not harmonising with the swelling verdant hills behind, destitute of dignity and constituting a contemptible foreground to the magnificent ranges of the Loch Lomond and Argyllshire Alps. All the Cardross shore, Ardmore, the heights above Helensburgh and the loftier hills of the Fruin gained upon me as much as the features of Glasgow had lost. Roseneath and Argyll's Bowling Green were grand and Ben Lomond most glorious of all; nor were the hills of Loch Eck and Dunoon to be despised, nor the fair broad Clyde in front of all. All this while the train is passing close to where your friend Mrs Perston lived; along the river side, through defiles of Trap rock, most beautiful to behold, covered with honey-suckle, golden ranunculus, Bramble in flower, the great Trollius and red Geraniums, growing in wild luxuriance out of the most natural-looking walls of the road. Everywhere the Foxglove nodded to the tremor of the Train (very fine !),- from the rocky ledge watered by

numberless little streams with green mossy sides that gushed from the crags. Repeatedly I had to look down for the rails, for I could hardly believe myself on a railroad, or think that I was not traversing the same road where Will and I used to walk long before steam upon dry land was imagined as a means of superseding our feet. Port Glasgow is ruined by the railway. I stopped there and saw the Sydney ship, the "Ellora", a nice little Barque, and deposited there the sundries for C.Graham. The Bus for Greenock, where I was to meet him, advertises for 2 p.m. (nobody goes now by steam-boat), but no horses were in, nor more appearance of starting than by Mrs Mailocker's Coach to Queensferry (vide Antiquary). After due delay, the vehicle was brought harnessed to two of the oldest hacks in the Vale of Clyde: one with its mane all grey and the other bald-necked, and off we went at a snail's gallop. I had wished to see the Captain of the "Ellora but supposed I had not time, little guessing that I might have overtaken the Bus itself, an hour after starting at any given point between Port Glasgow and Greenock, by means of my legs alone. We made slow progress, stopping to let the driver look at a caravan of wild beasts, "Filly Norwich" outside it. Greenock is in statu quo: Rain when I arrived, and as it rained when I left that place 7 years before, 'tis fair to suppose it has done so ever since, especially as there is profusion of green mould over the houses. I met Graham and his uncle, Capt. G., at the appointed place and we dined together, and Baillie Grey came and showed us his pretty house and garden where there are stoves and beautifully

kept plants, many of them very rare scarce. Having said Adieu to Charles, I set off at 1/2 past 5, (mail train) and reached Glasgow 1/4 past 6, and as no train would start for Edinburgh till 1/2 past 7, I had time for a walk, and so I started to look at the town, hoping it would improve upon me: but all was cold, dirty and dead to me;- not a familiar face even the shops new tenanted. Crossing the bridge I turned along Argyll Street to the foot of Buchanan Street. I used to think that a conspicuous point, but it is not so now. The Arcade, after after the Burlington and Lowther, looked like a hole in the wall. and the whole street was marvellously foreshortened ! So long as I lived in Glasgow my ideas of distance were calculated from having measured the spaces by the short steps of childhood, now I was astonished to find how quickly I got over the ground. I turned into St Vincent Street, and the space seemed much curtailed to the top of its hill: I could have believed a piece was cut out, so small did everything appear. Thence up Hope Street, where the buildings were better, and in Blythwood Square good, though sadly bare of ornament. Sanchy [sic: Sauchy] Hall Street is a lane and nothing more, and a very dirty one too, being still paved with cinder dust. The wooden shop where Parlies (Parliament gingerbread) used to be sold, remains; but the brick wall beyond it is pulled down and lies in ruins along the path, exposing a lot of stunted thorn and Apple trees, begrimed with soot, and hardly a leaf upon them, a few sable sheep and sundry defilements. This place is a perfect disgrace to Glasgow. Beyond is a sunken lawn and house at the back, the coping stones all battered and

2 or 3 of the spikes on the palisades which I left are now gone. Then comes the turning down before Gillespie's Pond,- a diseased hedge, wo-begone to behold, and filthy decayed palings. All this side of the Sanchyhall Road is in a most infamous condition, the other is tolerable - in statu quo. The Crescent smiled and looked well; I proceeded in my walk so as to come up to it by the end of the Woodside Terrace, to which a continuation is now building, and thence past these houses which belonged respectively to our neighbours, Mr Kean, Dykes, Christies, till I reached the one which was ours: it always seemed to me funnily huddled between the Crescent and the Terrace; but it still looks very nice and quite clean. The Schoolroom window stood open and had some geraniums in it; a large print faced my curious gaze into the dining room, but this is all I know. The Crescent had not lost; it was built after I had attained the years commonly called those of discretion, and I suppose I had all along formed a fair estimate of its dimensions and aspect; with regard, however, to all the other streets, especially rows of houses, they had invariably dwindled to half their former size. I returned past our Bath Street house, which seemed empty, and then down to the Railway in St.George's Square. I had not met a single face I knew till arriving at the Terminus, where an old schoolfellow of Donic's Class accosted me, recognising me in spite of my spectacles! We went to Edinburgh together, he telling various tales of the acquaintances of my childhood, now eminent Tinkers, Wire-drawers, Provision Merchants and Grog shopkeepers in Glasgow and its neighbourhood; for into these several professions some of them had

entered - doubtless to be Deans of their Guilds in time. He had with him a list of all who were in the school with us. Exactly one half were known to be dead! And this in twenty years - for I went to the Grammar School at 7 years of age. At 10 o'clock I reached Edinburgh and went first to Great King Street, where I delighted the Grahams with a sketch of Charles's ship;- then home,- wrote a yarn for the Students,- turned in,- and dreamed of New Zealand. Everybody, you say, asks for me: pray tell everybody l ask for them.
J.D.HOOKER. To Miss E.Hooker*1.