SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON in his
autobiography, referring to the visit of Sir Robert Peel to Glasgow in
1837 to deliver his inaugural address as Lord Rector, mentions:
Sir Robert was extremely amused with
an anecdote related at table at Blythswood of a Presbyterian minister in
one of the Cumbraes, islands in the estuary of the Clyde, who every Sunday
prayed for— "The greater and lesser Cumbrae, and the adjoining islands of
Great Britain and Ireland."
He laughed heartily at this
characteristic trait, and was hardly less interested by an observation
which I made:
"That the name of Cumraes, or
Cumbraes, was the same as Cambria and Cumberland, and all these were
derived from the
