The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1819-11-18 00:00:00

MURY-LANs.

THE CATHEDRAL AT GLASGOW.

(Prom a Peter's latter* to kh•Eia.fol4")
((banana( frost oar Paper of Saturday)

" Among the other profonstious which this fine
old Cathedral has had to *nautili, not the least has
been the erection of various new buntline; in
its intorribete vic ttt it y. quite hostile to the impres-
sion its majestic form, left alone in Its church-
yard, 'night be so well fitted to convey. On the
one hand, on the very edge of the hinial-ground,
there has been set up a little ofeeninahle would•
be Gothic church, iii the very word of all pos-
sible styles of Gothic imitattoon thing ruin of
stlndOS/S and corners, with it roof like a barn—
and covered—to the shame he it spoken of peo.
ple whit hive such abosolioce of free-stone at
their handy—covered with a rude patched coating of
brown lime. It put me in mind of some little hunch-
backed, he.vy-hratled dwarf, toting the port and
gestures or a grand giant, who-e knee he cannot
twitch. At the other side, they have put down, still
nearer to the Cathedral, a building very passable in
itself—nay, very elegant. se buildings go in Scot-
land—but scarcely. to my mind, less ill-judged in
regard to its petition. This is the Royal Infirmary
—a spacious limillpornr house, in the Grecian style,
or, rather, in what 'scatted now-a-days the Grecian
rtyle of architecture. In toiler to nt.ke room for
it so 'sear the obi church, the trod wise folks of
Glasgow pulled down a few years ago, RS my guide
informs me, the ruins of the ancient Archiepisco-
pal Palace or Castle, which occupied, with a very
different kind of propriety. the mine commanding
spot. Surely this was a very uwnecessary piece of
barbarity-but, if the old castle was to be retnov.
ed, they might, at least, have erected in its room
something that would have better harmonized with
the neighbourhood of so grand a church.
" %Vita one calls, in common patristic., a hand-
some building its these days, is often a thing which
has neither graiitleur nor beauty. Indeed, modern
building+. in general, are sio uninteresting in their
general shape, and their surface is so much frit-
tered down with different rows of windows, mill
with a complexity of trivial and unprofitable parts,
that they scarcely ever tell much to the imagi-
station, or convey to the eye any our broad sod
palpable concord of forms. The necessity of hoe.
ing different flats or stories, must al wile be in some
iiseioure hostile to simplicity. No pillar can stretch
from the top to the bottom of ouch a bonding,
without doing it more harm than good ; and the
expedient of piling different orders of architecture
one above another, although it was employed with
a noble effect in the Coliseum at Rome, and in
oilier amphitheatres, Skelni to lose all its dignity
when interspersed with the paltry little windows of
modern days. Them smooth and glazed rows
never fail to destroy the conception of a vast and
magnificent space in the interior.
" The Gothic buildings, in general, have no
want of unity. The multiplicity of part. is indeed
great, but they are made quite easy to be COM..
prehesided by their repetition : and the design of
the whole, is always evidently subservient to one
purpose.
" I take it, Mr. W--, in his description of
my character to his cousin. had done at least full
usemure of justice to my antiquarian propensities;
for he seemed to think it a matter of course. that
my inclinations would lead me to give the whole of
my first day to the most ancient part of the city of
Glasgow. This, as I mentioned, is the part im-
mediately in the neighbourhood of the Cathedral—
the Archbishop and his court of deans, chaunters,
precentors, and prebendaries, having. of course,
been the lords paramount of attraction in those
days to the burghers, who lived chiefly by their
means. There are several entire streets of the epis-
copal city still remaining—all in utter disrepute, as
might be expected from their situation, and inhi-
bited by the lowest vulgar : but all of them con-
tainiog the shells of floe old hou.es, much supe-
rior in the taste of their architecture to the more
splendid buildings which fill the more spacious
street. of the modern city of merchandise. Osi
some of these old homes, I could tract various
coats-of-arms. from which, had Glasgow a W--
to decipher them, I doubt not, much of their his-
tory might really be gathered. H's kinsman pus.
stases a little tincture of his lore, sod pointed out
to me, in different quarters, the beatings of parti-
cular families or Bishops in a sufficietitly knowing
style. In many quarters, he ',hewed me the shields
of the House of Hamilton, and the Stewart*,
Lords of Minto—in which families successively was
vested the regality, or lay lordship of the 'archi-
episcopal lands shortly after the Reformation. He
chewed me also one large and floe old bonding,
which formerly was a residence of the Motormen
sod still beers the name of Montrose Lodge—and it
was this very house, as he tells me, that Darnley oc-
cupied during that illness which brought Mary from
Edinburgh to be his nurse, only a fees weeks before
the catastrophe of the Kirk-in-the-field. The
must extensive of these eucirlit streets, however,
is out so abundant in these vestiges of ancient
- the - • It stretches quite

flerhollenged any nuta to prove ailfal eo,roptinn

against him; he had. on the controry, cni.dneted
liiindelf in five successive elections wholly free from

such a charge. though it was so openly practised
in a particular borough. that twenty.four gut-
11.s, was the price of a plumper, and tsarist
. split vote. He .had materially served the
Borough and its inhabitauts, who were gristefi I
tend anxious to shew their gratitude towards him.
Wing engaged in many public works, he abided
himself of • variety of opportunities to be useful
to the inhabitants. among whom he diatributed
great deal of beneficial labour—he had always 01--
jected to bribery. this was known to nosily out or,
and to some within that Court. The Member f. r
Leicester, whom he saw behind the Bar. kl ew it,
from a particular transaction (Mr. Swann w I
understood to allude to Mr. Denham, to short
he looked, but Mr. Denham is Member for Ware-
ham). lie had refused to countenance bribery at
Grampound, sod was he therefore to be held up to
the world us an encourager of it ? Ile then debut-
ed the circumstances of pentotial indignity which hr
had endured. He had sent a written request to t!:e
Attune y-General to postpone judgment h's
case fur a Term, as urgent butanes. required Iwo
io look after his affairs in Jamaica ; but that Leertt-
ed person. in very polite terms, lamented he co,' I
not comply with his request, and also stated, th .1 I e
hid given directions ou the previous dsy, t! at
he (Mr. Swann) should be informed it was op-
emery for him to enter into recognisance. if.
abide the judgment of the Court. Now lie would
tell the Court how this commuoicstiou had Leen
made to him. At the hour of six o'clock in it..
morning two persons entered his house in the oi.n•l.
try, ran up stairs, and knocked at his herb-room door
with as much violence as if they meow to break it
open—they alarmed his wife and daughters, and itr
with difficulty was allowed by them to enter Lot
dressing-mom ; they shoved his servant out. who en-
tered to clean his coat and boots, mud while he was
by himself. engaged in changing his linen, I. s wife
happened to throw up a window in another room,
end one of there persons, under the notion that he
meant to @scope, tau out to the garden. and with.
out ceremony dashed his arm through the w:tid.ev
of his dressing-room, threw up the sash, atei
acted towards him as if he were a traitor, a felts: ,
a murderer. He complained strongly of t'e-
gradation, as he was a mon always to be fund at
his house, • Magistrate always acting on the Bei- .1
with its brother Magistrates, and of course at Oh
time to be found when required by any body. Il
then proceeded to arraign his prosecution, whita
he called severe and unjustifiable, when lie was in-
terrupted by--
The CHIEF Justice, and reminded that tl e
I Court could not listen to such reflections.

He begged pardon, and concluded by reallii.4
a letter addressed to him by 150 respectable it'd,-
viduals in Cornwall, who spoke iu the highest tem. s
uf his honour and independence.
The COURT reinipded him that thia declarstio
could only be received in the shape of an affiansr.
Mr. Swann then concluded by stating. that 1.1
Parliament he had ever acted as a conscientious,
in-
dependent man, unshackled by Ministerial ssr nil
influence, and was therefore unlikely to be gu:l y
of wilful or corrupt bribery.
The ATTORNEY GENIRA L that diOrZl
much of what Mr. Swann had just uttered w;:s ins. -
levant to the real case before the Court, he y. t
hoped fur their indulgence, while he exisl.lll,:l
certain insinuations which had been thrown nut re-
specting the conduct of his predecessor and !!itaisell.
He had yet to learn in what manner it bad ess r
been the practice when the (-louse of Commons or.
dered the Attorney General to institute a proseci.-
ikon, to control horn in the means and form in
in which he should be made by instructions 5.$
limit the means of conducting it. It nevtr was
the practice to confine the inquiry to any particular
evidence, and it was always open to the Attorney.
General, nay it was his positive duty, to .u-tai:a
the prosecution by the best evidence it was 1.1
his power to procure. Mr. Swann had dwelt
upon his acquittal of particular counts in the
formation, but he had refrained from explathis
the cause of the acquittal, which was inertly na
consequence of • variation between the form in
which the offence was laid, and the 111 Mort 1U
which the evidence substantiated it. Mr. Swann
could not surely urge that because lie had been
acquitted of other offences, he was innocent of
this. With respect to the apphcation he had
made to him to postpone the judgment, he (she
Attorney-General) certainly had given it a refusal.
He was compelled to do so with pain, Irons a *vitae
of public duty. as he had been intrusted Isy the
House uf Commons to conduct this prosecution,
and he of course could not take upon himself the
responsibility of postponing judgment after the
conviction which had taken place. Touching the
complaint made by Mr. Swami of the manner in
which the process of that Court had been executes
the Defendant knew that the moment 1w (ma Ain),
ney-General) had heard of hi. having cosuridrr.tl
himself treated with harshness, he had untriertmiety
inquired into the occurrence, and one of kilt Officers
of that Court was called upon to make a deponent u