Buck’s Head Hotel, Glasgow.—(3rd.) Has attended the prize-giving ceremony at the university. Describes the university buildings and discusses the characters of the professors.—1 Bath Street, (Glasgow).—(5th.) Describes the cathedral. Hooker has left some drawings of plants behind. Hopkirk’s encounter with striking workers in the Gorbals. (6th.) Her forthcoming engagements.
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Transcript
Glasgow. Buck’s Head Hotel. May 3d 1820.
My dear Papa
Since I have now a little leisure time while Maria is preparing our lodgings for our reception I have begun a letter to you, though most likely it will not be sent for some days, but I am glad to take every opportunity of writing home, which is, I am sure, the most agreeable employment I can have here—even more agreeable than writing out my journal. Maria and I went on Monday with Mrs Thomson to see the distribution of the prizes—a ceremony which takes place annually on the 1st of May, previously to the students leaving the College for the vacation, which might be called the long vacation with more justice than ours is, as it lasts 6 months. The distribution takes place in the common hall of the University, in which all kinds of university business is performed on week days, and Divine service on Sundays. I told Mamma in my last letter how thinly it was attended and how irreverently on that day,—but on Monday it was entirely filled by the Students and Professors, and the galleries were crowded with spectators. Two silver medals were given to young men in the Divinity Class, and a great many handsome books were distributed in that and the other classes by the different Professors. A great deal of emulation and anxiety was excited among the Candidates, and a great deal of interest was shown by their friends and relations. Nothing can be less like an English Collegian than a Scotch one—instead of a smart young man, he is usually a shabby, dirty boy, perhaps not more than ten years old—and nothing can be more different than an English University and a Scotch one (if all Scotch ones are like Glasgow) for instead of a handsome set of buildings filled by the Collegians, this College consists of two gloomy Quadrangles inhabited by a limited number of the Professors, while the Students lodge where they may in the town, those who can afford it generally boarding with Clergymen, or with one or other of the Professors. Beyond the second Quadrangle is the Hunterian Museum, a very handsome, modern Grecian building, which looks very well by itself, but rather incongruous when seen in conjunction with the remainder of the College. Several of the Professors and their wives have called on Mr Hooker and Maria,—Professor Young is the one who seems most sensible, most acute, and most gentlemanly. He is a fine, intelligent old man, and his wife and daughter {1} would be thought quite ladylike, even in England. Mr Young is much acquainted with Mr Jeffery† who came here last week and pleaded on Saturday. I had the gratification of seeing him on Monday—he is a little man with an extremely acute and intelligent, though not at first sight a very pleasing countenance,—but he can look very pleasing when he converses. Dr Wardlaw, a very celebrated preacher among the Covenanters or Independents and Dr Muir were also at the College on the 1st of May: but to see Dr Chalmers we must go to his Church for he rarely goes into public on any other occasion—those who do not like him, and I am sorry to say there are several of that class among the Professors, attribute his retirement to a wish to appear more virtuous than his neighbors, to pride, to eccentricity etc, while others think the great charge he takes of his flock, and the numerous works he composes are a sufficient reason for his declining to appear much in company. I was glad to find Dr Young of this opinion—he looks on Dr Chalmers with sincere respect, and listens to him without finding him, as Dr Thomson told me he did, both wearisome and unintelligible. Now as Dr Thomson would be extremely amazed at its being thought that he did not understand to the full as much as any man in the united kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and as thousands and thousands hear, understand, and almost adore, Dr Chalmers, I must conclude that Dr Thomson, and such as he, have set themselves against conviction—and if a man does this, you know that it is enough, and that he would not be persuaded, even though one rose from the dead. {2} Short as the time has been since I have been here, I have found there are schisms among this learned body of Professors. The principal one arises from the division of a certain sum from the funds of the College between a limited number of Professors instead of between the whole. This money amounts to as much as 4 or £500 annually to each of them, and they contend that since it was originally devoted to the profit of a certain number of Professors, they ought not to be obliged to divide their property with those who have been newly added to their body, but that, if the new comers are also to be endowed, new funds should be raised for this purpose. Dr Thomson is the most forward and the most unpopular among these “parvenus”, and I think he would like to draw Mr Hooker into a cooperation with him; but happily my brother has too much wish to be on good terms with his brethren to join in any scheme that might hazard their good will. At present he is extremely liked, apparently, by all, they have voluntarily made him an L.L.D. and seem to wish to give him every encouragement in their power. Dr Brown, whom you perhaps remember when you were here, has just called on him. He was Botanical Lecturer there, though the Professorship was not instituted, and has offered my brother any assistance in the way of advice which, as an experienced Lecturer, he may well be able to give. I hope Mr Hooker will be able to make his instructions amusing—he is at this time rather anxious about them. 1. Bath Street. May 5th. We are now settled in our new lodgings, and I think we shall find them very comfortable. Bath Street is quite at the western extremity of Glasgow, not very far from the Trongate, the great centre of the town, and about a mile and a quarter from the Botanic Garden. I have been to the Cathedral since I began this letter. It is situated on a little eminence on the North East of the city, which is now running away from it to the West, so that poor St Mungo is only surrounded by narrow crooked lanes, and house, some of which by their height shew that they have seen better days, but are now occupied by the lowest and filthiest in this unequal town. The front, I mean the West end, of the Cathedral is extremely mutilated—only one of the towers remain[s], and that is square and heavy and unornamented, and the central tower is also ugly enough, though it is surmounted by a spire. The south side is by far the handsomest and the least altered, though that is disfigured by a modern tomb (I think) running out where the south transept should have come, for both the transepts are but just indicated, and never were carried out, so as to form the figure of the Cross. All the windows of the Clerestory are of the earliest and simplest Gothic—those in the aisle below are much more complicated and adorned. Nothing can be more disfigured than the interior of this venerable Church. The west end is filled up with the most rigid, presbyterian aversion to whatever is grand or beautiful, and they have entirely succeeded in disfiguring it so that not a trace is left of its former magnificence. The east end has been better treated—the galleries and pews are of dark wood handsomely carved, an elegant pulpit supplies as well as it can the place that ought to be occupied by the altar, and the painted glass is allowed to remain in the windows. The capitals of the clustered columns here are more richly loaded with leaves and flowers, and the carving is more sharp and beautiful than any I ever saw. Peter, in his letters, {3} gives an admirable description of the appearance of this desolated Cathedral with its mouldering walls, and its churchyard paved with tomb stones—a grave had been recently dug among these, and the ground about was strewed with human bones. He describes admirably too the modern, Grecian Infirmary filling the place of the Episcopal palace on the one side, and, on the other, the little modern Gothic church which has an infinitely worse effect than St Margaret’s by Westminster Abbey.—Mr Hooker has, in unpacking and arranging his books here, discovered an omission, which distresses him very much. He has left behind him a leather case which contains 80 or 90 magnified drawings of different parts of plants by which he meant to illustrate his lectures. On discovering this misfortune yesterday he immediately wrote to my aunt Jas. Turner {4} at Halesworth with directions where to seek for the drawings, and to send them to him, but, since he had, in order to add to them, left them out, to the last, to take them in the sac†, he fears that he may have brought them on a few stages, and left them on the road. In the introductory lectures these drawings will not be wanted, but if my aunt cannot find them in time f<or> the succeeding ones, I do not know what my brother will <do>. He has, as yet, seen Mr Hopkirk, but once, and that was at his Counting house, or office, where he was taking depositions. Mr Hopkirk is a Magistrate, and one of the most respected and most active here. He had, the night before my brother called on him, been employed in taking arms from some disaffected people in the Gorbals, and the mob had resisted those who attempted to disarm them. There was a serious scuffle, but no lives were lost. Every one says that there has been and still is a great deal of distress among the poor here, in spite of the liberal subscriptions which have been raised for them, but it was not the poor and distressed, but men who at that time received from a guinea and [a] half to two guineas a week, who refused to work and made the most disturbance. More than 100 men in one manufactory on the officers of justice entering it to find out the seditions among them, openly told the officers tha if they sought for radicals, as they called them, they might, if they could, seize them all, as they were all of that description. Their present tranquillity is attributed more to the presence of the military and the strictness with which they are watched than to a disposition to do well among the leaders of the sedition; but many of those who from ignorance and a hope to improve their conditions would have joined the radicals at first, are now, it is thought, really disgusted with their proceedings, and disposed to be quiet. May 6th. I have delayed finishing my letter, dear Papa, in the hope of receiving one from home, which I now fear I shall not do for some days if you waited to receive my direction. You must remember that, though it will be three weeks tomorrow since I left Yarmouth, I have had but two letters from any one yet; and though I may have more to relate that is new than those at home can have, yet certainly I who am separated from you all, must be the one who wants the comfort of letters from home the most. Give my kind love to dear Mary, and tell her that if visiting here was very amusing I am likely to have amusement enough next week. We go this evening (Saturday) to Mr and Mrs Towers; on Tuesday to Mr and Mrs Mylne—Wednesday to Mr and Mrs Walker—Thursday to Mr and Mrs Young; and Friday to Dr and Mrs Muirhead. But, alas! we shall only meet the same set of Professors at the house of each, and, except the Youngs, I fear that, though they may understand Surgery, Anatomy, Moral Philosophy, etc etc, very well, they are not very entertaining companions. I hope you will not think from my saying this, or from Mr Hooker’s remarking that we thought these learned men a queer set, that either Maria or I behave as if we thought so. I am sure that, at present, they all like her very much, and really she has never given them the least cause to do otherwise; and I think that I have not either. Besides I am sure that they are a very hospitable people and we are entirely obliged to them for the desire they shew for our company, for certainly they must take us on trust. I hope you have written to Mr Lyell, and set him right in the mistaken notions respecting me; and pray remember that any news relating to any of your correspondants†, and particularly any of the Norman Letters will be highly amusing to me. Be kind enough to commend me very respectfully to Mr Layton when you write to him, and to remember me kindly to Mr and Mrs Brightwen. Give my best love and duty to Mamma and love to my dear sisters and brothers (in spite of Mr Cohen’s opinion against such messages) and believe me ever
your very dutiful and affectionate daughter
Eliz. Turner
[Superscription:] Dawson Turner Esqre | Great Yarmouth [In the bottom left corner:] Single Sheet—
[Postmarks:] [1] GLASGOW | A6 | MAY | 1820 | 405-<.> [2] [Indistinct.]
[Postal fee:] 1/2
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{1} See Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk (1819), by ‘Peter Morris’ (John Gibson Lockhart), Letter LXVII.
{2} Charlotte Turner, later Vavasour.
{3} Probable reading, but possibly ‘seditions’ or ‘seditious’.
{4} Elizabeth therefore left home on 13 April.