Considering the depth of the river at the period, we have our suspicions that the good old man must have exercised the poetic license to its full extent in his enumeration of the shipping, and that he must have had Dumbarton and Greenock in his eye when he talked of "foreign lands," This is all the more likely, as we find that a few years earlier, Patrick Bryce, tacksman of the Gorbals coal-heugh, complained that he could not get his coals loaded at the Broomielaw, from the scarcity of water, and that he had to crave license from Sir George Maxwell to have them transport through the lands of Pollok to a place of embarkation near Meikle Govan. How the enterprising coalmaster and the sage historian would stare, if they could rise from the land of shadows, and be for a time permitted to gaze on the busy, bussing scene which our harbour now presents; or if they could witness the lengthened vista of towering masts which is to be seen from the Glasgow Bridge, stretching away into the distance, and enlivened by never-ceasing arrivals and departures! Clyde floweth not now past the "borders" of the town. Far and wide, since the days of M’Ure, has the city spread its ever-extending labyrinths, and the stream which then was its border has now become as one of its central streets. The giant steam, too, has since arisen, increasing indefinitely the productive powers of man, and in defiance of wind and tide annihilating time and distance by its wondrous powers of transit. Marvellous indeed would the changes which have occurred appear in the eyes of the old historian, and proudly would he acknowledge that his native town, since he left the scene, has amply justified its motto of happy augury, "Let Glasgow flourish!"

Taking our way down the southern bank of the Clyde along the crowded quays, and passing spots where, in our own recollection, green fields, hedgerows, and trees once occupied the space where stately vessels are now moored, we soon arrive at the picturesque, and despite its vicinity to the city, still rural-looking village of Govan. The walk in this direction has long been a favourite one with the denizens of Sanct Mungo, who, on Saturday afternoons, or on Sundays after the skailin’ of the kirks, love to stroll by the waterside to "snuff the caller air," as Ramsay has it, and to gaze upon the landscape, well pleased to see that green is still the livery nature loves to wear. The gradual extension of the harbour has, however, divested the banks in a great measure of their natural charms. Many of our readers, we dare say, will remember the bitter lines which the bard of Hope penned, when, after an absence of many years, he revisited the haunts of his boyhood in the vicinity of Glasgow. On these very banks he had wandered many a happy day, and often, when far away, we need not doubt, his fancy would bring back to his gaze the joys of langsyne and the scenes with which in his mind they were associated. He sought the Clyde, but the hand, of improvement had wrought what to his eye was a woful change, and he sang in the fullness of his sorrow the following

"LINES ON REVISITING A SCOTTISH RIVER.

"And call they this improvement?—to have changed,
My native Clyde, thy once romantic shore,
Where Nature’s face is banished and estranged,
And Heaven reflected in thy wave no more;
Whose banks that sweetened Mayday’s breath before
Lie sear and leafless now in summer’s beam,
With sooty exhalations covered o’er;
And for the daisied green-award, down thy stream
Unsightly brick-lanes smoke and clanking engines gleam.

"Speak not to me of swarms the scene sustains,
One heart free tasting Nature’s breath end bloom
Is worth a thousand slaves to Mammon’s gains.
But whither goes that wealth, and gladdening whom?
See, left but life enough and breathing room
The hunger and the hope of life to feel,
Yon pale mechanic bending o’er his loom,
And childhood’s self as at Ixion’s wheel,
From morn till midnight tasked to earn its little meal.

"Is this improvement? where the human breed
Degenerates as they swarm and overflow,
Till toil grows cheaper than the trodden weed,
And man competes with man like foe with foe,
Till death that thins them scarce seems public woe?
Improvement! Smiles it in the poor man’s eyes,
Or blooms it on the cheek of labour? No!
To gorge a few with trade’s precarious prize,
We banish rural life and breathe unwholesome skies.

"Nor call that evil slight; God has not given
This passion to the heart of man in vain,
For earth’s green face, the untainted air of heaven,
And all the bliss of Nature’s rustic reign:
For not alone our frame imbibes a stein
From fetid skies; the spirit’s healthy pride
Fades in their gloom; and therefore I complain
That thou no more through pastoral scenes shouldst glide,
My Wallace’s own stream and once romantic Clyde."

The sweet singer of Hope seems to have been altogether in a despairing mood when his muse gave utterance to this most doleful effusion. Poets, however, have seldom been remarkable for devotion to the study of political economy. They are generally conservative of the beautiful, even to the sacrifice of the useful. Wordsworth raised his voice against the intrusion of the rail into the green solitudes of Cumberland, and Campbell could see nothing to admire in the commercial elevation of the Clyde, although the prosperity of his country was thereby infinitely enhanced. The splendid discoveries of a Watt, or the ingenious application of these discoveries to the propulsion of vessels by a Bell, were nothing in his eyes to the preservation of a flowery bank. We have no sympathy with the maudlin sentiment which is ever selfishly crying, "Woodman, spare that tree," when the said tree is a public inconvenience; or, "Injure not the lovely banks of that stream," when the so-called injury would be productive of benefit to a whole community. Such was not the purpose which pervaded the genius of Burns. He mourned the impending fate of the "wee modest crimson-tipped flower," but he turned not the ploughshare aside to spare its bloom. Addressing it, he says,—

"For I maun crush aneath the stour
Thy slender stem;
To spare thee now’s ayont my power,
Thou bonnie gem."

While regretting the destruction of the beautiful, he well knew that the right onward furrow of utility was not to be interrupted by a sickly sentimentality. Wordsworths and Campbells may foolishly protest in measured phrase against the march of improvement, and gild their maunderings with the richness of an exuberant fancy, but the ploughshare of progress can neither be stayed nor turned aside from its course, although here and there a flower may be "crushed beneath the furrow’s weight."

The village of Govan, like most other old townships, is a long straggling congregation of houses, having been permitted apparently to "hing as it grew," each individual proprietor "biggin" where it best pleased himself, and without the most distant regard for the opinion or convenience of his neighbour. It is, in fact, the most curious and eccentric little townie that we know, and always wears, to our fancy, a kind of half-fou aspect. At two places, the Pointhouse and the Ferry, it comes rambling down towards the river; but, as if startled at its own temerity, it staggers rapidly away back, zigzagging into nondescript lanes and wynds, the irregularity of which would break the heart of any individual whose hump of order had an extraordinary degree of development. It has a predominance of thatched houses, too, as if in its sturdy independence it was determined to retain its straw bonnet in defiance of the innovating slate. Altogether Govan has a genuine old world look, which is perfectly unique in these days of improvement and change, and which forms a not unpleasing contrast to the stiff though stately angularity of our own somewhat overgrown town.

In the vicinity of Govan there are a considerable number of elegant villas, embowered in cosie garden-plots, screened amidst hedgerows and trees, and generally occupied by well-to-do citizens of the Western Metropolis, who can afford to combine the pleasures and profits of the city with the charms of rural retirement. These are in many instances so situated as to command a view of the river, with its steamers and sailing vessels ever passing and repassing on their watery way; while the country around, with its fertile haughs, gentle undulations, belts and clumps of trees, all chequered with the verdant fences of the thorn, presents many a sweet snatch of landscape of the fairest English type. The village itself, as seen from the margin of the Clyde, with its handsome church and elegant spire—a facsimile of that at Stratford-on-Avon, the birth and burial-place of the great dramatist—has an exceedingly fine effect, and has often tempted into action the imitative skill of the artist. The church is a chaste Gothic structure, and the churchyard is one of the most beautiful that we know. It is surrounded by a girdle of tall and rugged elms, which throw their chequered shadows over the green mounds below, lending an air of quiet and seclusion to the spot, which harmonizes appropriately with those sombre reflections which the field of graves is so well calculated to excite. We linger for a brief space among the silent mansions of the dead, poring over the records of mortality on the tombstones which are scattered around, but nothing calling for special remark rewards our search. There is a dreary monotony in the tales of the auld kirk-yard. They were born and they died is ever the sad legend—repeated with endless iteration, and to be repeated till time shall be no more; a few short years of difference the only variation. The redbreast perched on the roof of the church piping the dirge of the departing year, and the yellow leaves dancing in the air to his melancholy strain, are also but sad repetitions of sounds and symbols which season after season have thrilled the heart of man with the same unwelcome moral, that "the end of all these things is death."

Adjacent to the church of Govan is the manse, a plain but comfortable looking habitation, surrounded by a garden, and commanding a fine view of the Clyde where it is joined by the Kelvin. The predecessor of the present worthy incumbent, Dr. Leishman, was the celebrated Mr. Thom, whose caustic wit and keen spirit of satire have ever since his day furnished our local Joe Millers with an inexhaustible supply of anecdotal lore. The pungent genius of this preeminently witty minister is also obvious in a collection of sermons, tracts, and letters, which was published in Glasgow about the commencement of the present century, but which is now only to be found in the libraries of the curious. We may also mention that an individual who resides in Govan preserves religiously the wig of the reverend wit.

The antiquary or the relic-hunter will find but little to attract his attention in Govan. Formerly there was an ancient green tumulus called "the Doomster’s Knowe," near the bank, a short distance east of the ferry; but within the past few years, to the chagrin of the local Oldbucks, this interesting memorial of the pre-historic past has been levelled to permit the extension of a neighbouring dyework! Sic transit gloria mundi. An individual in the village, who combines the professions of publican and poet, and who has deservedly attained considerable celebrity under his Parnassian nom de guerre of "Bue," has several objects of antiquarian and sentimental interest in his possession, which will repay the inspection of the curious. Among these are the chair on which Burns habitually sat by his "ain fire-end" at Durnfries, and (incongruous association!) the Bible of Wishart, the Scottish martyr. With regard to the genuineness of the chair we have no doubt, but as to the authenticity of the legend which "Bue" has attached to the antique Bible—and a curious old blackletter copy it is—we have our own misgivings. Poets, "with reverence be it spoken," are not the most trustworthy authorities in regard to matters of fact. "Bue" himself, by the by, a thing that does not always happen, is the most interesting piece of furniture in his own house, as every one must admit who has had the pleasure of hearing him recite some of his beautiful and heart-touching effusions.

We may mention, before leaving Govan, that besides a weaving and a silk-spinning factory, it can boast of an extensive dyework; and that from building-yards erected by the enterprising firms of Tod & M’Gregor on the north, R. Napier & Sons, J. & G. Thomson, and Smith & Rodger on the south side of the river, it has recently produced some of the most handsome specimens of marine architecture that have ever graced the bosom of the Clyde.

The walk from Govan to Renfrew, a distance of some four miles along the margin of the river, is in the highest degree pleasing, but it presents few features calling for particular remark. On both sides the country is somewhat flat, partaking, in this respect, as well as in its general fertility, more of the softer character of English landscape than of that which is peculiar to our own mountain land. An abundance of trees and hedgerows still further heightens the illusion, so that, as we pass along, without tasking our imagination overmuch, we could almost fancy ourselves rambling through some genial scene in "merry England," were it not for the Kilpatrick Hills towering in the distance, and reminding us by their familiar features that we are still located on the kindly breast of our "auld respected mither." Wordsworth talks somewhere of a river "wandering at its own sweet will," and a lovely sight it is to see a streamlet turning and winding like a playful child in very lightsomeness of heart. No such vagaries, however, are permitted, in this part of its course, to the Clyde. It is here "cabined, cribbed, confined," and compelled to own the mastery of man, and like a steed in harness, carry his burdens, and do his drudgery. Passing in succession the houses of Broomhill, Fairfield, Linthouse, and Shieldhall, each girt with its own gardens and groups of trees, tinged with the variegated hues of autumn, we arrive opposite Scotstoun, the fine mansion of Miss Oswald, which is beautifully situated on the right bank of the river. Scotstoun and Renfield (now Blythswood) have been elevated to poetic honours by the author of "The Clyde," who thus celebrates their charms in his fine descriptive poem:-

"Where Scotstoun shines afar with snowy light,
And beauteous Renfield captivates the sight,
His ample mirror Clyde to both displays,
Where each her image with delight surveys;
So at one glass, two rival beauties stand
Their charms admiring, one on either hand:
Now self-approved, each looks with lofty scorn—
Now sinks each bosom, with black envy torn;
Now triumph flashes from each lovely eye,
Now pride, desponding, heaves the unwilling sigh."

"A plague o’ both your houses," honest John, say we, for a couple of "capernoited biggins." The jealousy of the rival houses, however, was, after all, only a fond fancy of the poet, as our readers will readily believe, when we assure them that the one tenement is situated a good mile farther down the river than the other. It is not often that our author stretches the professional license so far as in this instance. His descriptions are generally correct, and his reflections appropriate and judicious. We have frequently, in the course of our rambles, had occasion to quote from "The Clyde,"—a poem which, we humbly think, is far from being so well known as its merits deserve. Dr. Leyden characterized it as "the first Scottish loco-descriptive poem of any merit," and remarked that the author’s "descriptions of rural scenes and occupations are always true to nature, and often diversified by striking and picturesque touches." The poet traces the Clyde from its origin down its entire course, glancing at every scene which is remarkable for natural beauty or historical association, until its waters are lost in the wide Atlantic. To the people of Clydesdale his delineations of scenery should prove especially interesting; and we are only surprised that it has never attained a more extensive popularity. Before taking leave of Wilson, we may mention that it was while occupied as a teacher in Rutherglen that "The Clyde" was partially composed and prepared for the press. He was afterwards invited to become superintendent of the Grammar-school of Greenock. This situation his necessities compelled him to accept, although one of the conditions of his engagement was that he should for ever renounce "the profane and unprofitable art of poem-making." To this bitter condition he seems ever after to have rigidly adhered, although, as might have been expected, not without murmuring. Many years afterwards he thus expressed himself in a letter to his son :—" I once thought to have lived by the breath of fame; but how miserably have I been disappointed, when, instead of having my performances applauded in crowded theatres, and being caressed by the great,—for what will not a poet master in the delirium of possession dream !—I was condemned to bawl myself to hoarseness among wayward brats, to cultivate sand, and wash Ethiopians for all the dreary days of an obscure life, the contempt of shopkeepers and brutish skippers." He died at Greenock on the 2d of June, 1789.